by Bruce Wydick
Sofia and Angela decided to explore the next step—the coffee that was marketed through the cooperative. The cooperative was located in Huehuetenango, about an hour and a half away by bus.
Sofia and Angela met José-Ernesto and they waited patiently at the bus terminal, their bus arriving about forty-five minutes after it was due to depart. The arriving passengers dismounted one by one, followed by the driver, who got off the bus and made a beeline to the bus station cafeteria.
“Good thing our appointment time is flexible,” remarked Angela.
The bus driver returned a half hour later, mounted his seat, and entered in some information in a torn leather notebook. The three were first in line as the hydraulic doors to the bus banged open. With a gracious gesture of his hand and a deferential bow, José-Ernesto motioned Sofia and Angela ahead of him to board first. They mounted the steps and took seats in a row toward the middle of the bus as the bus driver cranked up the diesel engine. Other passengers climbed aboard as the bus idled.
After the old Blue Bird bounced awkwardly down the curb and headed out of the station, Angela asked José-Ernesto, “So for Guatemala, why coffee?”
“Indeed, it is our biggest export, sin duda,” he replied—without a doubt.
“Can you tell us a little more about it?” asked Sofia. “I know we skimmed the surface at Fernando’s, but why is Guatemala’s economy so dominated by coffee?”
“Si pues.” José-Ernesto cleared his throat, shifting in his seat excitedly. Angela could see his passion for the subject.
“You see, for nearly 250 years after Europeans set foot on its soil in the early 1500s, the most important Guatemalan exports to Europe were neither food nor precious minerals. Rather they were indigo—plants—and cochineal—insects—used in the extraction of blue and red dyes, respectively. But in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the indigo encountered plagues of locusts. Moreover, countries such as Venezuela and India had increased their own supply so that market prices fell precipitously.
“So as Guatemalan exports of indigo declined, cochineal began to supersede indigo as our country’s chief export during the first half of the nineteenth century. Large cactus plantations were created to host the cochineal insect, which after being boiled, dried, and pulverized in batches of millions, yielded carmine, the bright crimson dye used to tint the clothing and military uniforms of Europe. Through slight variations in the processing of cochineal, one could extract different shades of color, ranging from orange to purple. It was a highly valued commodity, and it began to dominate the economy of Guatemala, comprising between 50 and 80 percent of exports. But as synthetic dyes began to be developed in Europe, Guatemala began to diversify its export base toward a greater emphasis on alternative commodities.”
Angela watched José-Ernesto as he talked and decided he was an example of someone who, if life had been kinder to rural Mayans, would have been a professor of one thing or another at the university. At the university he could have relieved this pressure valve of bursting knowledge at regular intervals in his classes. But as life would have it, he was a spirited soul trapped in the wrong life, and she wondered who else he had in this life with whom to expel this bulging warehouse of worldly erudition. She and Sofia listened attentively to him, occasionally smiling at each other and glancing at the rugged mountain scenery passing behind him through the window.
“Now in 1871, the Liberal party under Justo Rufino Barrios took control of the government on a platform of economic reform. Looking to examples of modern economies in countries such as yours—the United States, Argentina, and Europe—the focus of the Liberals was not to provide education and services to the poor in rural communities, but to modernize the Guatemalan economy. A principal focus of this effort was the intention to develop coffee as a principal Guatemalan export, and to jump-start the coffee industry they needed economic reforms in finance, land, and labor. They made easy credit available to those wishing to begin coffee cultivation, but they needed land, and the main obstacle of the Liberals was that previous Guatemalan governments had given much of it to the indigenous Mayan peoples in the form of ejidos, or communal property. But the Liberals regarded the ejidos and other communally owned lands as symptomatic of economic backwardness. So they enacted a number of laws that fostered the leasing and purchase of indigenous lands by commercial agricultural interests at low prices, with the intention that they be brought into coffee production.”
Angela was missing a few of the words in Spanish—he was using some words that she didn’t understand, but she continued to listen. José-Ernesto lifted the sunbaked straw hat off his head, wiped his brow with his sleeve, and continued as the aged school bus chugged through the countryside. “Now as you know, coffee is an extremely labor-intensive crop during harvest, and access to capital and land still left open the question of who would work the coffee fields of Guatemala. Not surprisingly, my ancestors—the native peoples—showed little interest in the task. So to induce them into agricultural labor, managers of the plantations created a system of habilitaciónes, or advanced payments on wages. Under this system, workers received up-front wage advances but remained in legal debt to plantation owners and were barred from leaving the land until the habilitación was repaid through agricultural labor. Repayment of the debt in money was disallowed. You see, the habilitaciónes essentially created a system of slave labor. Many indigenous Guatemalans, who were bound to their employer through their debt from wage advances, could be threatened with imprisonment for leaving the plantation or failing to perform laborious agricultural tasks.”
Angela considered that some of her ancestors were probably caught up in this too, and she frowned.
“The government of Barrios established a series of laws in 1877 that sanctioned and strengthened the habilitaciónes system. Moreover, they legalized the practice of mandamientos, a national system that used a military-style draft to commandeer indigenous labor for work on coffee plantations. Barrios also passed a ‘Law against Vagrancy’ in 1878, where those without work could be legally sequestered for agricultural labor. Through these policies and heavy investment in the country’s road and train infrastructure, the Liberals of the 1870s tried to launch Guatemala into a new era of economic growth and prosperity.”
“Did it work?” asked Angela.
José-Ernesto looked out at the mountains. “No. Lamentablamente, it did not. It helped cement a silent class system in our country that formed the antecedent of our long civil war. Sadly, this class system remains to this day, although few speak openly of it.”
Angela thought about how many of her ancestors probably worked as virtual coffee slaves with little opportunity for self-improvement or education. She was beginning to see how the roots of poverty ran deep in Guatemala, and they were a product of the evolution of history, something she learned little about in her economics classes at UCLA.
The bus announced its arrival into Huehuetenango with several blasts of its magnificently loud horn. The cooperative was located on a dusty street near the outskirts of the city. The three travelers got off the bus at the main station and walked about a mile through the streets of Huehuetenango to reach the cooperative. Huehuetenango was a bustling regional capital, its dusty streets full of noisy, crowded buses and the smell of diesel. The high altitude combined with the air pollution on the streets made Angela’s lungs ache. They finally arrived at the cooperative headquarters.
As soon as they walked through the front door, it was evident that the cooperative ran on a slim budget. Empty coffee boxes, an archaic copy machine, and a lone personal computer decorated the spartan office. Old coffee promotion posters with smiling peasants were affixed with yellowed scotch tape to the gray concrete walls. A man emerged from a back room. He looked like a coffee grower himself, about five feet tall and of Mayan descent, with rough coffee grower’s hands that looked to be permanently tattooed with dirt.
He greeted the students cordially, and José-Ernesto introduced them to Juan Zegarra,
the cooperative manager. “Buenos dias, Angela, buenos dias, Sofia.” Juan extended one hand and smoothly reached into his vest pocket to hand them his card with the other.
“Mucho gusto.” Angela and Sofia shook hands with him and glanced down at his card.
“Please have a seat, and excuse the mess. We seem to be in a chronic state of reorganization around here. I understand from your professor’s e-mail that you’re here to learn a little bit about our cooperative.”
“Yes, we are on a research project sponsored by USAID on the coffee value chain,” said Sofia. “We’d like you to tell us anything you can about the relationship you have with your growers and how you market their crop.” Sofia had a spiral binder on her lap, and Angela was prepared to tap out notes on a laptop.
Juan explained the need for fair trade in terms of stability. “Our cooperative has been certified as a ‘fair trade’ cooperative by TransFair. You see, coffee price volatility has a dramatic effect on the income of growers. Over the last decade, New York arabica green coffee prices have gyrated between $1.58 and $0.61 a pound. Given the normal costs of production of one of our farmers, even a seemingly modest fall in the world price from, say, $1.40 to $1.20 could cut a grower’s coffee earnings in half. One of the goals of fair trade coffee is price stability, and this is arguably more important than trying to achieve the absolute highest price in the good years.”
“We were interviewing one of your members, Fernando Ixtamperic in San Pedro Necta,” Sofia explained. “He says that only about a quarter of the coffee that growers send to you is marketed as fair trade.”
“Yes, unfortunately the market for fair trade and organic coffee is much smaller than we wish it would be. Of course, we would like to see that fraction grow.” José-Ernesto nodded in agreement.
Angela could see that Sofia had keyed onto something.
“How does that fraction of coffee you can sell at the higher fair trade price vary with coffee prices?” Sofia asked.
“Interesting that you ask that question. We have noticed that this fraction that we are able to market at the higher fair trade price falls as coffee prices decrease, and it becomes larger as prices increase.”
“I believe I can tell you why,” said Sofia.
“Please do.”
“I believe if you look at your records, you are likely to find that as coffee prices fall, more growers want to become fair trade certified so that they can obtain the higher fair trade price, and the volume of coffee marketed through your cooperative increases.”
“And since the demand for fair trade is independent of price fluctuations, this reduces the share from the cooperative that is able to be marketed under the fair trade price,” interjected Angela.
“I do not have to consult my records; indeed you are correct. I know for certain that both certification and volume increase during low price phases.” He reached for some papers in a file drawer anyway, and showed them the data.
Sofia turned to Angela and said in English, “This trip was worthwhile.”
CHAPTER 10
Alex
AS SOFIA AND ANGELA INTERVIEWED THE DIRECTOR OF THE cooperative, Alex and Rich carried out an inventory of Fernando’s costs of coffee production.
“Fernando, what is average cost of production?” Alex read directly off the questionnaire slowly and carefully in Spanish. He wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts. Doing formal interviews in Spanish made him a little nervous, but he knew the practice would be good for him.
“No sé,” confessed Fernando. “I don’t keep very good records.”
Rich broke down the question a little. “What are some of the costs involved in growing your coffee?”
Fernando seemed to answer that easier. “Well, fertilizers, the wages of the jornaleros I need to help maintain my plants and for the harvest, transport of my crop to the cooperative, a few taxes . . .”
Alex looked through entries Fernando kept in a small journal for wages paid to jornaleros and tried to carefully sum up all of Fernando’s costs.
As he did this, Rich asked another question. “Fernando, how much do your children work on the crop?”
“When they’re being lazy, or when they’re not being lazy?” responded Fernando.
“How about an average amount of lazy?” Rich grinned.
“Oh, maybe a couple of hours a day, and dawn to dusk during harvest,” he replied.
This struck Alex as strange. He looked up from the journal. “Why are you asking that? He doesn’t pay them,” probed Alex.
“Opportunity costs,” replied Rich offhandedly. “Never forget ’em. That’s the mistake made by a lot of bean-counter accountants. Makes you underestimate true costs.”
Rich and Alex worked on estimating an average cost of production. It was harder than Alex had expected, and it involved a fair amount of educated guessing.
“What do you have from the journal?” Rich asked Alex.
“Uh, seems to use about two jornaleros each day for ten days for putting on the mulch. Roughly same for harvest. Wage—thirty quetzales a day—can one believe such an exploitative wage?” remarked Alex. Indignant anger boiled up in his chest. “Forty cents an hour!”
“So now Fernando’s moved from exploitee to exploiter?” asked Rich.
Alex glared back at Rich but offered no rebuttal. He carried out some elementary arithmetic calculations. “With exchange rate of 7.5 to the dollar, I am supposing we have about $160 for the hired labor.” Rich entered this figure into the spreadsheet on his laptop. He added the cost of the organic mulch and fertilizer that Fernando used on his crop. No receipts were available for transportation costs, and so they quizzed him about this, trying to triangulate on a consistent estimate. They added in some other costs of maintaining the acreage, pruning, repairs on a fence, and included figures for the 12 percent sales tax levied by the government and a 5 percent tax on revenues. Rich continued to work on other minor costs based on some old receipts lying in a folder, but Alex stopped and put his head in his hands. Why couldn’t he stop sweating? And now he was really starting to feel nauseous.
“You alright, Lefty?” Rich asked.
“I am feeling perfectly, thank you.”
It was not the truth. Alex wasn’t sure what he had eaten that was causing the problem; perhaps it was the leftover chicken feet, or maybe it was the salad from last night, but whatever it was, it was beginning to initiate a gastrointestinal rebellion that was progressively involving new combatants all over his insides. Another fifteen minutes passed.
“Perhaps it is possible that I don’t feel so good,” Alex finally conceded. He was bent over and his knees were beginning to feel wobbly as well.
Richard turned and looked at Alex. “Whoa, y’all really are looking like a member of the Green Party. You’ve gotta lie down or something.”
Fernando was nearby, and Rich called him over and explained the situation. They tried to convince Alex to lie down on one of the three beds in Fernando’s house.
“Unfortunately, I think I must do important fieldwork in the coffee plantation first,” lamented Alex, and he staggered a few yards into the coffee plants. Leaning over with his hands on his knees and his face beading with sweat, he ejected his breakfast and lunch.
“Fernando, would that still qualify as organic fertilizer?” Alex heard Rich ask Fernando in Spanish.
“Sí, no problema,” Fernando reassured.
Fernando helped Alex over to the bed. Rich reached into his backpack and took out a brown leather bag.
“What is this thing?” asked Alex.
“Before graduate school, did a little paramedic training in Georgia. Know a fair amount about common tropical ailments. Always better to be prepared down here.” Rich opened the first-aid kit and pulled out a thermometer. Alex placed it under his tongue, and a few minutes later Rich took it out to read it: “A hundred and three. Boy, you’re baking like a Dutch oven.”
“You have medicine in that bag of yours?” asked Alex. “I need
drugs.”
Rich looked through the bag. “Shoot, must have run out of cipro after my own bout with the stomach beast.”
“How convenient is that.”
“Look, Lefty, patient complaint forms are located near the south wing elevators. You stay here, and I’m going to go run and get some meds in town. Probably just food poisoning or a stomach bug, but that fever ought to worry you a bit.”
Alex moaned and turned over on the hard bed.
Not long after Rich had left, one of Fernando’s daughters entered the house. She was medium height with dark brown, shoulder-length hair, about eighteen years old, and surprisingly didn’t appear shocked to walk into her parents’ home to see a foreign man lying on her bed. Like her mother, she was dressed in the traditional Guatemalan clothing, wearing the blouse, or huipil, with its embroidered flowers, and a hand-loomed skirt, or corte, with its multihued stripes and patterns. Through half-open eyes, he was still able to notice that she was quite attractive.
Alex was still feeling terrible, and Spanish was even more difficult than usual. “I am sorry. Am I being on your bed?”
“It’s mine and my sister’s, but that’s okay. My father told me you are sick.” Her face was soft and gentle, almost cherubic, and had a natural kindness about it. “Yes, I think I ate a very, very bad salad. And some old chicken feet. Muy, muy mal,” lamented Alex. Very, very bad.
“You ate a salad here? Even we don’t eat the salad. You are a very brave person,” she said. “Or very silly.” She offered a kind but mildly teasing smile.
“What is your name?” asked Alex, hoping to change the subject from his foolish mistake.
“My name is Lourdes,” she replied. “I’m one of the middle ones. Two older hermanos and one younger one. This is my little sister Ema.” Ema peeked out from behind Lourdes’s skirt to look at Alex. “Can I make you some tea?”