Checking up on Fondo Paez

On the brink of harvest season, a CoopCoffees delegation comprised of TJ Semanchin of Kickapoo Coffees and Florent Gout and Monika Firl from our Montreal staff visited producer partner Fondo Paez in order to get a closer look at market, production and organizational challenges currently facing the coop.We were joined by Nicolas Eberhardt of allied FT buyer Ethiquable, France... and together with producer representatives spent several days of intense discussion and debate looking towards a particularly challenging export season.

The travels were part of our on-going involvement with the US AID Farmer-to-Farmer program, which facilitates technical assistance and information exchange between North and South.

The Paez (who also call themselves Nasa, or "the people") is the largest indigenous group in Colombia.

Their land is in the Cordillera Central – in the mountains of the Cauca region.  Fondo Paez was founded in 1992, with the primary goal of recuperating traditional agricultural knowledge and indigenous culture, which had been buried by centuries of conflict and marginalization.  Paez community leaders teamed up with Fundacion Colombia Nuestra (FCN), a Colombian-based non-profit, to start the "Recovering Agricultural Knowledge" program.  The main cash crop of this region is still coffee, and, to ensure a stable income for their members, Fondo Paez organized community based coffee cooperatives. They became more organized, and, by 2000, they were selling coffee through the Coffee Federation’s Specialty Coffee program. In 2003, they produced seven containers of coffee, both conventional and organic certified.

But despite their seemingly good organizational structure and sound planning, Fondo Paez is facing crisis after three consecutive years of disappointing coffee harvest yields. This current harvest is the most critical – due in great part to climate changes and the resulting attack of the Coffee Rust disease (Roya). A period of intense heat and sunshine was followed by 2 weeks of intense rains – the humidity provoked an outbreak of Roya that was uncontrollable and destroyed much of the harvest… especially in the higher elevations.

The Roya epidemic has decimated large tracts of coffee plantations... many farmers with whom we spoke expecting only minimal production on their plots, and some expecting no coffee harvest what-so-ever this year! Farmers say this could have been avoided, if they had been better instructed and had followed through with appropriate preventative measures – copper/sulphur sprays, appropriate shade management, etc.

Meanwhile, the National Federation of Coffee (FNC) growers has set an ambitious national objective to double Colombia’s export capacity for the coming years - from 9.4 million bags in the low year of 2009 to 17 million bags by 2015. To meet that challenge, the FNC researchers have been investigating for more than 20 years – different hybrid varietals to help them achieve these goals. As a genetically engineered “super varietal” – the FNC sees their recently introduced "Castillo" varietal (now called "Colombia") as their most promising avenue to date. To stimulate the renovation of the coffee regions, the FNC is offering credits to farmers at 1,500 pesos per Castillo tree planted and will forgive 40% of that credit based upon maintenance of the trees.

But Fondo Paez farmers are concerned that after the effort of renovating with an experimental new variety, they may be setting a production plan into motion with unknown end results. As a newly introduced variety and one based upon an intensive chemical package to meet the production yield objectives, organic farmers like those we met with at Fondo Paez are extremely anxious about both the plant’s ability to adapt to organic practices as well as the impact this varietal will have on final cup quality.

This is a particularly complicated situation for Fondo Paez, which is a group committed to the self-sufficiency of their people and has a holistic approach to farming. Coffee is only one of many crops that are incorporated into a diverse agro-forestry system. Food crops for their own consumption, feed crops for the farm animals, and nitrogen fixing plants for the soil are given equal importance to their cash crops: coffee, sisal, beans, and different tropical fruits. Fondo Paez is also exploring options to further develop a budding roasted coffee project for their local market.

At the conclusion of a one week whirlwind tour.... we saw hope and despair, great motivation and deep concerns about the future of coffee farming for Fondo Paez members and their families. In the day of climate change, farming has become more challenging everywhere. But when harvest results mean the difference between food on the table - or not - the stakes are just that much higher!