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Apecaform 08/05/03
Visit to the farm of the President of the cooperative, Armolfo Ramos
Altitude: 1 450 meters
Armolfo
has 5 cuerdas of land (1 cuerda = 21 square meters), the equivalent
of about 1/4 of a hectare. He received his parcel in inheritance from his
father, who divided his land between his 5 children. Armolfo commented that
many of his brothers had abandoned their land to go work in the USA. Since he
just renovated many of his coffee plants this year, he will probably have a
very low yield of about 3 quintals of pergamino, In a good year he can
produce up to 7 quintals. In this region, the harvest season starts in October.
It usually takes three years for a
renovated three to start producing cherry. On some other land he has acquired he
his experimenting with the production of potatoes for the first time.
When
they are ready to sell their coffee, farmers of a same community get
together to set a date. They then rent a truck to bring the coffee to
Malacatan, one of the five points of collection of Manos Campesinos. In
Malacatan, Manos will pay for the truck, weigh the coffee, check the quality
and give the farmers the full payment. Bringing the money to these
collection points represents a risk for Manos Campesinos, as they must transport large amounts of cash with them from a bank in a larger city outside Malacatan. The possibility of robbery is high. However, this was the best
solution for them to compete with the coyote, in order to offer the same advantages they give
the farmer.
Armolfo
has a son and a daughter, both attending school in the closest town, San
Marcos. He talked about the difficulty of paying all these expenses with only his coffee production income. School can cost up to 14,500 quetzal (about 2
000$US) a year per child. Last year he received a bursary from Manos Campesinos
for his daughter's school expenses. He also remembered the help he
received from Manos Campesinos after the Hurricane. The organization offered
them food support and gave them small coffee plants to help rebuild.
His wife,
Helena, received the support from the Church Pastoral de la Tierra. In order to
diversify their income, this project gave loans to the women of Apecaform to
buy some baby chickens, turkeys and ducks. When it started, the project lacked an aspect relating to
education with the result that many animals were lost as the women did not have much experience with taking care of animals. Helena is also involved in Apecaform’s project to sell roasted
coffee on the local market. When we visited, the roasting was still done
traditionally on an open fire. They recently received a roasting machine from CRS (Catholic Relief Services)
that they will start using once they fix the electricity alimentation problem.
Visit to the farm of the Vice-President, Aodelio Ramos Chavez
Altitude: 1600 meters
Aodelio considers that one of the principal benefits of being member of Apecaform is the better price he receives for his coffee. With this income he has been able to increase his parcel by buying 10 cuerdas of land. This is very significant, especially if we consider that the price of a cuerda increased from 500 quintals 15 years ago to about 2,000 quintals today. This increase can be partly explained by the increasing population and decreasing availability of land. In his plantation, Aedolio grows more then 15 other type of trees, such as bananas, mangos, lemon, avocado, oranges and tomatoes.
Meeting with Apecaform’s Board
There is a board election every two years. Anyone can present himself for a position, but many members are limited by their lack of education, as they must be able to read, write and speak Spanish. They are elected at the general assembly and can get re-elected. Usually around 50 per cent of the 440 members come to the election. Apecaform is made up of 17 communities, the remotest being at a 5 hours walk. Once elected, the board members meet together generally once a month and they receive a compensation for their time.
The cooperative's communications are made through the promoter. Each community has a person identified as the promoter who can be reached easily by the cooperative and he also offers services of agricultural assistance. According to the Board, the organisation’s priority for the next year is to increase their volume by adding new members and increasing the production. They also want to find solutions to the market price fluctuation problem. If new members are accepted, the cooperative will have to deal with an increase in their transitional organic coffee. Cooperative Coffees was asked if they could help by working to increase the demand for this coffee, as the market for this product is very small. CC said they would look at the possibility of buying half a container of this coffee. Miguel, form Manos Capesinas, noted that it is sometimes better to sell the transitional coffee directly to the coyotes, based on the price they can receive for it. With the market price increase, Manos Campesinas now offers 50 to 75 quetzals above any coyote prices to be sure they get all the coffee.
At the end of the harvest, Manos Campesinas explained last year's costs and the prices at which they closed their contracts. For the year 2007, 67.79% of the selling price was returned to Apecaform for a total of total of 90 000$US.
