The Coyote Cometh

The coyote comes to buy the coffee late in the morning; the pitch is always the same, "you better sell now because the price is just going to keep going down... Sure you might get a better price in town, but you do not have a truck to move all this coffee into town do you? I know that you grow good coffee and that it is clean and you do not use chemicals, but my hands are tied, I can only pay you $0.45 per pound for this coffee."

The growers always have the same delima, do I sell now or wait for till I need more money? Sometimes the price goes up later in the year and sometimes it goes down. "My coffee is always excellent," the grower responds, "I suppose that I could see if the other coyote has a better price than you, I don't really need the money today..."

"Oh come now my dear friend," responds the coyote, "we have been partners for many years and I have the cash right here in my pocket, those other buyers will never be as fair and resonable as I am. Let me help you with a some money now."

The banter goes on for several minutes and the outcome is almost always the same, the grower sells his coffee for less than it is worth because he has no other viable options.

The little coyotes will sell the coffee to the big coyotes, plus their commission. They call it a commission but it is really another way that the grower is exploited. Who knows how much the big coyotes are paying for a kilo, $0.50, $1.o0 or even $2.00... (Cafe Justo pays the growers $2.66 a kilo,) And who knows how much the big coyotes sell coffee to the international coffee brokers and companies for...

But what other choice is there? Money is needed, the roof leaks and the rains are coming, school supplies can not wait and then there are the medicines and light bill, buying more coffee plants and the birthday upcoming… what other choice is there now?

Not many, but with the next Cafe Justo cooperative starting in El Aguila, Adan will have another much more viable option for his coffee for the upcoming crop in November of 2007.

Keep checking this blog for updates and the latest... t3

The Cafe Justo El Aguila Blog

LOWES DEPOT- aka Ecomat comes to Salvador Urbina

It does not look like much in this photo, but this is a sign of prosperity and change in the small mountain community of Salvador Urbina Chiapas.

This used to be an apartment, but was recently converted to a building supply store. The pile of sand in the front right side of this photo is inventory for sale when you buy your cement. They carry a little bit of everything besides cement including (as listed on the building): LP gas connections, re-bar, nails, wiring, PCV piping, zinc coated corrugated roofing, and you even can see the indoor lumberyard in the window!

The Ecomat has come to Salvador Urbina, Chiapas for the same reason that Lowe’s and Home Depot have come to my city; because there is money to spend on home building and home improvements, both at a contractor and homeowner level. There is a lot of home building and additions going on, and it is not just with the money sent from children working in the USA any longer. In Salvador Urbina in 2006, the cooperative Café Justo paid it’s member’s more than 1,000,000 pesos, (equivalent to $100,000US dollars) and is now the largest employer in the community. The community is growing, the schools are filling up again and new homes are being build because families no longer need to separate to find work to pay bills and basic expenses.

This change has come because of an incredible out flowing of support for the coffee that this community cooperative grows in the USA. Coffee drinkers have been regularly purchasing the excellent coffee from this area at a fair price, a price that pays for health insurance for the grower families and allows the growers to plan for the future because they are guaranteed a fair and just price for their coffee as well as are building a business that they own and manage.

It is good when people can be in the communities that they grow up in, where their family and friends live and are born, die and are buried. The building supply store, as humble as it is symbol of a much brighter future for a small agricultural community in the southern most part of Mexico. A place where thousands of young and strong, innovative and energetic people have left to find employment that pays more that $0.80 per hour.

Soon we hope that Lowes expands to El Aguila too!