Hope in the Shade of Cocoa Trees

Ouedraogo Boureima was just four years old when, in 1985, his family left their village in Burkina Faso and walked across the border and into Côte d’Ivoire. They brought only the clothes on their backs, two sheep, four cooking pots, food for travel and a picture of their ancestors. The family traveled south and then west, finally settling in the rural community of Blolequin, where Ouedraogo’s father declared that he would support them as a cocoa farmer.

Ouedraogo’s family planted and then cultivated cocoa trees, and they built a new life for themselves. Ouedraogo came of age and eventually joined his father in the cocoa fields. Then in 2011, the Second Ivoirian Civil War broke out, leaving Blolequin in shambles with dozens killed, and forcing the family to retreat to Burkina Faso. Last year, as a measure of peace began to settle back over the land, Ouedraogo returned to Côte d’Ivoire.

“My heart, my loyalty and my livelihood lies among the shade of my cocoa trees and the blood red earth of Western Côte d’Ivoire,” explains Ouedraogo Boureima.

“My heart, my loyalty and my livelihood lies among the shade of my cocoa trees and the blood red earth of Western Côte d’Ivoire,” he explains. Now 31, Ouedraogo is carrying his father’s dream forward. It is a dream shared by more than 4.5 million people in Côte d’Ivoire, who depend on cocoa for their livelihoods. But as the Boureima family knows well, cocoa is an industry fraught with challenges, including price volatility, farmer exploitation, low wages and child labor, in a country plagued by political instability.

Despite the war’s end, political unrest continues to threaten Côte d’Ivoire’s cocoa crop—already under pressure from pests, fungi, unsustainable farming techniques, climate change and drought—while global cocoa demand climbs steadily at a rate of three percent a year. At the same time, increasingly low yields raise concerns about future cocoa shortages and hurt the incomes and aspirations of millions of Ivoirians.

In 2008, the Rainforest Alliance began to introduce socially, environmentally and economically sustainable practices to farmers in Côte d’Ivoire—helping farmers increase their yields and their profits, and improve their lives. Ouedraogo is one of tens of thousands of farmers in Côte d’Ivoire who have benefited from Rainforest Alliance certification.

In an effort to improve his family’s life, in 2011 he joined a cooperative of cocoa farmers working toward Rainforest Alliance certification. Many farmers in his community were initially skeptical of certification. The country’s history of violence and political unrest colored their perception; over the years, they had been approached by a number of NGOs offering aid, but in the end, they all failed to deliver on their promises. Desperate to support his family, Ouedraogo was willing to accept the possibility that certification would not pan out.

Ouedraogo Boureima (third row center, yellow shirt) with Rainforest Alliance staff and other members of the COABOB co-op.

Just one year later, Ouedraogo’s understanding of certification has evolved substantially. As with many farmers, it was initially talk of a price premium that attracted him. In actuality, certification does not guarantee a price premium, but higher yields resulting from the techniques promoted by the Rainforest Alliance have improved farmers lives. A 2012 study found that net income on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in Côte d’Ivoire was 291 percent higher than on noncertified farms.

As Ouedraogo and other farmers have learned, however, higher incomes are just one aspect of the complex journey to sustainability. Now in its second year, Ouedraogo’s Rainforest Alliance Certified cooperative COABOB is composed of 798 farmers who have a much deeper understanding of the challenges and benefits of certification. It was a struggle, for example, for many farmers to accept certification requirements that prohibit the use of toxic agrochemicals and encourage the use of alternative methods to control pests and add nutrients to the soil. With decreasing yields, many farmers felt pressure to increase their use of pesticide and chemical fertilizers on cocoa trees “It takes the Rainforest Alliance training and an outside perspective to understand that these chemicals are not long term solutions,” explains Ouedraogo.

Certification has led to other on-farm improvements, as well. Through his work with the Rainforest Alliance, Ouedraogo learned to prune his trees (cutting away old, dead and diseased branches) and put a mixture of wood shavings and composted cocoa pods around the base of each cocoa tree (helping to keep the soil around the trees’ roots moist).  He has also planted a variety of trees on his farm to protect his cocoa from the sun and enrich his soil.

This year, Ouedraogo noticed that his trees had sprouted new, healthy growth. He is hopeful that his harvest will be larger as a result. If other certified farms in the country are any indication, he will get his wish. Certified cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire have produced 72 percent more than their uncertified counterparts.

“I am starting to believe that I can think long term, something that I have never been able to do before,” Ouedraogo says. “I want to practice farming techniques that will allow my son to have a future on this same land.” He feels hopeful knowing that there are consumers demanding certified products. “There are people who believe in what I am doing,” he says, smiling.  “This makes the world feel smaller and gives me pride in my work.”

Thanks to commitments from leading brands like Mars, Unilever, Kraft and Hershey, the Rainforest Alliance’s certification work in Côte d’Ivoire has experienced remarkable growth. Over the last six years, 85,000 Ivorian farms covering more than one million acres (410,000 hectares) have become Rainforest Alliance Certified.  Companies now recognize that environmental, social and economic sustainability are essential to securing the global cocoa supply—and that Rainforest Alliance certification can help to accomplish these goals.

Report from Mexico: A Community Committed to Forest Conservation

Mexico is the fifth most biodiverse country on the planet and home to a wide range of flora and fauna found nowhere else on Earth.  It is particularly rich in forest species – including over 1,000 native tree species — but has one of the world’s highest deforestation rates. The Rainforest Alliance is working with community foresters across the Central American country to stop the destruction, helping to secure a sustainable future for their forests, their children and their cultures.  Recently, our senior manager of communications, Stuart Singleton-White, visited a community of foresters in Oaxaca, Mexico. He writes…

The Ixtepeji Community Forest Park sits 8,000 feet up in the Serra Madre Del Sur Mountains.  To reach the park we drove 45 minutes out of Oaxaca, climbing increasingly windy mountain roads trimmed with crops and pine forest.  This was not a ride for the timid or squeamish.  Looking out from the bus window, I found myself facing a sheer drop with the valley hundreds of feet below.  I was thrilled I wasn’t driving, particularly when trucks full of logs hurtled toward us as they descended the mountain.

The spectacular views from the winding road.

The community forest park covers 52,811 acres (21,372 hectares) and is run by the local Zapotec community – previously, it was under the jurisdiction of the Mexican government.  Today, almost 80 percent of Mexico’s forests are owned by local communities, meaning that communities have a greater say in how their forests are managed and more control over the economic activities that take place on their land.  For the Ixtepeji, who have a community-nominated committee to manage many of those activities, sustainable logging is an important source of income. The community has earned Forest Stewardship Council certification through the Rainforest Alliance for its commitment to responsible forest management.

Cows freely graze on the property.

This means that the area of the forest open for timber extraction, approximately 9,474 acres (3,834 hectares), is operated on a 10-year rotation with selective extraction taking place in each area once a decade. While the community does plant trees, a great deal of the management focuses on the natural regeneration of the forest.

This portion of the park has been set aside for logging.

But it’s not only timber that provides an income for the community.  Another 4,754 acres (1,924 hectares) is managed to allow the sustainable extraction of other forest products such as ferns, bromeliads and moss — a vital component of any Mexican family’s nativity scene.

Bromeliads are harvested for additional income.

In 2003, the community set aside 2,965 acres (1,200 hectares) of the park for the development of an ecotourism enterprise, situated in the heart of 6,229 acres (2,521 hectares) of fully protected forest. Today the development includes nine family-sized cabins and a block of eight rooms, perfect for tourists who are there to hike, bird watch or simply relax in a beautiful environment.

The community’s ecotourism operation.

What I saw in Ixtepeji was a great example of sustainability in action.  This is forest management that isn’t simply preserving protected forest.  It is a dynamic and productive environment, conserving the best in biodiversity while ensuring a community is able to work in harmony with nature.  The community is able to provide livelihoods to its members for the present and future while keeping its roots planted deep in the ancestral soil.

Learn more about the Rainforest Alliance’s work with community foresters in Mexico and sustainable tourism operations.

A Reflection on My Journey with the Rainforest Alliance

Winnie Mwaniki, a longtime Rainforest Alliance consultant based in Africa, reflects on her work with tea farmers in Kenya.

My journey with the Rainforest Alliance’s sustainable agriculture program began in 2006 when I joined a small team in Kenya to kick start a three-year pilot project with Unilever (makers of Lipton Tea) and the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA). Designed to demonstrate the value of sustainable agriculture to smallholders through Farmer Field Schools — a learner-centered participatory approach in which farmers learn by observation, experimentation and evaluation — the project was initially implemented in just four of KTDA’s 54 factories.

Introducing farmers to sustainability

At the time, when I explained the concept of ‘sustainability’ to farmers I said it referred to something that not only keeps getting better but also has no end. Now, as I reflect on my work with producers, I realize that sustainability is not just about what we have been able to achieve, but also where we’re set to go.

Interacting with farmers during training sessions is always the most memorable part of my work. These sessions have helped farmers to realize that they have the potential to make improvements in their livelihoods and the environment that benefit them, their families and neighbors as well as future generations.

Over the course of this project — which came to an end in 2008 — we saw a great deal of success on the ground. We were able to work with tea farmers to improve knowledge of good agricultural practices; improve relations within communities; and increase tea yields by an average of 5 to 15 percent. The pilot project left participants excited and inspired by the improvements they had achieved, and prepared us for more work on sustainable agriculture with smallholder farmers in the other tea growing regions.

A year after the project started, Unilever made the decision to partner with the Rainforest Alliance on a journey to have all of the teas they buy for their PG tips and Lipton tea brands sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms by 2015.  Generally speaking, it’s easier for large scale tea companies to organize themselves and implement the Rainforest Alliance certification program (especially when compared with smallholder farmer groups). In Kenya, the groups around each factory are made up of about 10,000 farmers, each with an average tea plot of .5 acres (.2 hectares) growing alongside assorted crops – like  maize and beans – and dairy cows.

Moving toward certification

For smallholder tea farmer groups in Kenya, the pilot project was a natural entry point into the Rainforest Alliance Certified program. These farmers were already familiar with Unilever’s vision of sustainable agriculture, which overlapped a great deal with the Rainforest Alliance program. Nonetheless, it was not easy for these farmers to achieve certification. There were major challenges around training, including the difficulty of introducing a large number of smallholders to certification requirements (which not only apply to the crop being considered for certification — in this case, tea — but to the whole farm).  Farmers also found requirements for the safe handling of agrochemicals difficult to implement – though no chemicals are applied to farm tea in Kenya, many farmers use agrochemicals  for other crops grown on their farms.

By the end of 2009, all four factories (Momul, Ngere, Nyansiongo and Mungania) representing a total of 38,000 farmers had overcome these challenges to become Rainforest Alliance Certified. It was a tremendous achievement and the beginning of a long sustainability journey for these producers.

Changing my path

In 2009, I transitioned from Unilever to the Rainforest Alliance. Though I felt a great deal of excitement and privilege on my first official day with the Rainforest Alliance, I hardly noticed the change as I continued promoting sustainable agriculture principles among smallholder farmers in collaboration with Unilever and the Kenya Tea Development Agency.

Because the pilot project was a great success, the Rainforest Alliance, Unilever and KTDA began scaling up the work in 2009*. Our main objective was to introduce the Farmer Field School methodology to all other KTDA factories and implement the Rainforest Alliance certification program in 20 chosen factories. The Rainforest Alliance took on the role of project manager and I was asked to lead this work.

The implementation of the scaling up phase started in 2010. Since then, it’s been successful beyond expectations, thanks largely to support from the Rainforest Alliance’s training partner in Kenya, Partner Africa.

Leading the way

The commitment made by Unilever to source tea from Rainforest Alliance Certified origins was followed by similar commitments from other major tea buyers including Tata Global Beverages for their Tetley brand, Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate for their Yorkshire Tea brand and Twinings for their Everyday brand.  All of these market commitments stimulated an unprecedented demand for Rainforest Alliance Certified tea, ultimately leading to an ambitious program to help tea farms and groups in Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, India, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Indonesia, China and other countries to become certified.

Expanding our focus

Although I have focused most of my training and support on smallholder tea farmer groups in Kenya, I have also worked with coffee farms and cooperative groups and one smallholder flower group. In addition, I was charged with rolling out the Rainforest Alliance’s tea program across East and South Africa, where I have found the ideas and lessons from the Kenyan model very useful.

By mid-2012, out of a total of 54 KTDA factory companies representing 560,000 farmers, 35 groups are certified, 12 are preparing for certification and the remaining 7 have just started certification preparations. We expect all 54 KTDA factory companies to be certified by the end of 2013.  More than 30,000 smallholder farmers (outside the KTDA) are also implementing the Rainforest Alliance program in Kenya.

There are also ongoing programs with coffee extension companies like Ecom, Coffee Management Services and Tropical Farm Management to train several coffee cooperatives and farms. On the regional front, we have been working with more than 75,000 tea smallholders in Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi and Burundi.

As I said at a recent dinner in Nairobi to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Rainforest Alliance, I have to pinch myself to believe how much we have achieved in three and a half years! These achievements have all been made possible with the support of the amazing and dedicated team from the Rainforest Alliance, Partner Africa, Unilever, the Ethical Tea Partnership and their buyer members, the KTDA and Africert.

*Our work on this project was co-funded by the Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative and the Dutch Embassy in Kenya.

Part II: What Can We Learn from Brazil?

We’re back with a second blog from Chad Trewick, senior director of tea and coffee at Caribou Coffee, the first major US coffee chain to source 100 percent Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee. Here, Chad discusses the need to celebrate model farms and reward good agricultural practices.

It’s so important for us to feature and celebrate good practices by showcasing the work of “model farms.” Farms like these exemplify the innovative and responsible spirit needed to pursue sustainable and game-changing endeavors (and, eventually, monetize them). One farm we visited – Fazenda Juliana in Monte Carmelo, Brazil — was truly advanced in their long-term thinking and practices, going far beyond complying with environmental and social laws. While this kind of achievement is not financially accessible to most producers, those who have the resources and the motivation to achieve in this area deserve to be celebrated.

Recycling containers on Fazenda Juliana.

Leaders in Environmental Education

Fazenda Juliana has achieved special recognition for the education it provides to the children of farm laborers — education that far exceeds government requirements. As more young people leave farms behind for city life, their knowledge and appreciation of the community’s cultural heritage is waning. This move can exacerbate the challenge of finding a good labor force for agricultural work.

To combat this problem, Fazenda Juliana’s onsite school educates students about farming and gardening with a vegetable garden and orchard that students work in and eat from. The school also has a program allowing students to sell this produce (for their financial benefit) and learn about the business side of farming. Students also have access to an impressive number of computers, preparation for a technologically advanced workforce — whether on a farm or in an office.

Advances in Alternative Energy

A sign prohibits hunting on Fazenda Juliana.

Fazenda Juliana operates a small roasting operation that is fueled almost entirely by vegetable oil. It grows sunflowers, presses them, refines the oil, and uses it to fuel its generator. Even the exhaust from the generator smells good! We discussed whether this experiment actually paid off. In the end, it depends on the cost of petrol: when oil is cheaper, the sunflower operation can come at a slight premium. Most of the time, however, it is financially and environmentally beneficial to rely on vegetable oil instead of petroleum.

The farm employs a methane capture/biogas system that processes a portion of the farm’s human waste and other byproducts for supplemental fuel. One of the craziest alternative energy sources Fazenda Juliana is experimenting with is a plastic to oil conversion. A contraption that looks like something out of Willy Wonka produces a petroleum liquid that can be used in combination with gasoline to fuel a portable hot-water mister that sprays and kill weeds (a substitute for herbicides).

Workers have their own gardens and the opportunity to raise their own food.

Social Standout

An onsite dental and medical facility is available to all workers and their families. Even more impressive, Fazenda Juliana uses lessons learned from those operations to inform future improvements in farm conditions. For example, if they begin to notice that a number of workers are experiencing an illness or symptoms, they track down the reason for this increase in illness and begin the process of rectifying the problem.

A Commitment to Collaboration

As our visit came to an end, the cooperative representatives and producers I spoke with emphasized the need for ongoing relationships, mutual learning and shared innovation in sustainability. Caribou feels a great sense of pride for the position our company has taken to support Rainforest Alliance certification – influencing consumer behavior and empowering producers to earn a premium for their coffee. Our contributions to this growing and widespread movement should move us closer and closer to the “tipping point” when responsible behaviors become the new normal.

Read Part I of Chad’s blog from Brazil.

Pequeños cafetaleros en Guatemala dan un gran ejemplo al mundo

de Yessenia Soto, Rainforest Alliance

Tras cinco horas de viaje desde la ciudad de Guatemala y en medio de hermosos paisajes llegamos a Huehuetenango, al norte de Guatemala. En las empinadas laderas de sus montañas crece uno de los cafés más cotizados de ese país; de hecho, se dice que es uno de los mejores cafés del mundo.

Nuestro destino exacto era  Vista Hermosa, así que seguimos por 2,5 horas más desde Huehuetenango y surcado una intensa carretera de lastre para llegar a esta  aldea de pequeños cafetaleros, donde se ubica la Asociación de Desarrollo Económico, Social y Sostenible Los Chujes, ADESC. Esta asociación congrega a 68 pequeños productores de café que este año se convirtieron en el primer grupo de finqueros en el mundo en obtener la verificación del Módulo de Clima de Rainforest Alliance.  Esto quiere decir que cada uno está implementando una serie de prácticas agrícolas orientadas a la reducción de los gases efecto invernadero, el incremento del carbono almacenado y el fortalecimiento de la capacidad de adaptación y mitigación en sistemas agroforestales ante el cambio climático.

Vista desde las montañas de Villa Hermosa, donde está ubicados ADESC.

Nosotros llegamos a ADESC con el propósito de conocer cómo han logrado ser un ejemplo mundial de agricultura sostenible. Cinco miembros de la junta directiva nos dieron la bienvenida con una taza de café que orgullosamente llaman “café duro, duro”, una forma popular de llamar al café estrictamente duro o cafés de altura cultivados a más de 1400 msnm. En ADESC, el café crece a 1800 msnm.

Ya energizados conocimos la historia de esta asociación que tuvo su inicio en 1994, cuando varios vecinos, con el apoyo de la Asociación Nacional del Café, se unieron para realizar actividades relacionadas al manejo técnico del café. Pero fue hasta el 2006 que unos 40 productores decidieron constituir ADESC, y desde entonces han trabajado no solo para comercializar su café en conjunto, sino que para mejorar su calidad, producción y reducir su impacto en el medio ambiente.

Una de las primeras metas de la recién conformada asociación fue obtener la certificación Rainforest Alliance de agricultura sostenible, y gracias al trabajo, motivación y ayuda del programa AAA de  Nespresso –empresa a la que venden toda su producción– lograron certificarse en el 2008.

 

“Antes de eso nosotros hacíamos muchas cosas sin saber que estaban mal o que podíamos mejorar”, nos confesó Servando del Valle, presidente de la asociación. Gracias al proceso de certificación mejoraron sus prácticas agrícolas, como el manejo de desechos, redujeron el uso de agroquímicos y utilizan el equipo de seguridad al aplicarlos, prohibieron la caza y la deforestación, crearon terrazas y barreras vivas para evitar la erosión del suelo y empezaron a dar tratamiento a sus aguas negras y a proteger los acuíferos.

Leticia Monzón, miembro de ADESC, nos invitó a su finca El Jardín, de 3.5 ha, para ver en persona lo que han cambiado. Inmediatamente

Leticia Monzón en su finca El Jardín, de 3.5 ha.

nos señaló el arroyo de agua cristalina que cruza su cafetal y que antes recibía todas las aguas mieles de su beneficio húmedo. Luego nos mostró las terrazas y las barreras vivas hechas entre sus robustos árboles de café,  y nos explicó que todas las arañas que vimos entre las ramas eran buena seña de que utilizan tan pocos químicos que hasta los insectos buenos han vuelto. Ella dice que antes de la certificación no pensaba en la importancia de su finca para conservar la biodiversidad y ahora goza de ver la cantidad de aves que llegan por la fruta de sus árboles de sombra.

Además de los beneficios ambientales, el grupo ha mejorado mucho su organización: cuentan con junta directiva, toman las decisiones en asambleas, realizan iniciativas conjuntas para el desarrollo de la comunidad y velan más por la seguridad y bienestar de sus trabajadores, que principalmente son ellos mismos y sus familias. Al mismo tiempo, la certificación les ha dejado importantes beneficios económicos. Por cada quintal de café certificado Rainforest Alliance, Nespresso les paga un premio de US$8, de los cuales el 44% se destina a mantener la certificación y el restante 56% se reparte entre los asociados. Solo el año pasado, ADESC le vendió 8000 quintales a Nespresso.

Mientras recorríamos las fincas hablamos sobre el trabajo hecho para cumplir con el Módulo de Clima.  Mario López, coordinador de Rainforest Alliance del proyecto en Guatemala, nos contó que en el 2011 que le propusieron a los miembros de ADESC participar en esta iniciativa, eso sí, a sabiendas de que era una iniciativa relativamente nueva y en ese momento no había premio por estar verificados. Ellos aceptaron de inmediato y alcanzaron la verificación a inicios del 2012, tras pasar por diagnósticos, capacitaciones, talleres, elaborar planes de mejora y documentos, crear inventarios forestales, cuantificar la biomasa de las fincas y dar mucho seguimiento a su esfuerzo.

Cuando llegamos a la parcela El Rivetío (1.2 ha) pudimos ver algunas de las prácticas del Módulo Clima que están implementando. Su dueño, Mario Dionisio del Valle, nos explicó con ánimo que en su finca hay 4 árboles por cada 64m², los que además de dar sombra, capturan carbono y les dan oxígeno; a este mismo fin, contribuyen todas las barreras vivas y linderos que ha plantado para prevenir la erosión.  Las mediciones hechas durante la implementación del Módulo Clima,  evidenciadas en la verificación,  demostraron que las fincas de ADESC capturan 75 toneladas de carbono por hectárea y esta cantidad podría aumentar entre 5 a 10 toneladas gracias a la siembra de barreras vivas y especies arbóreas en áreas de linderos y barrancos.

Mario Dionisio Valle muestra que mantiene su abono orgánico bien cubierto para disminuir la volatilización y la emisión de gases de efecto invernadero.

Don Mario también nos contó que para ser amigable con el clima tuvo que aprender técnicas para reducir la emisión de gases en su finca. Durante las capacitaciones le explicaron que el fertilizante es una de las principales fuentes de emisión de gases de efecto invernadero en la agricultura, así que ahora él y todos los asociados hacen un análisis anual de suelo para conocer la cantidad exacta de fertilizante (mezcla de químico y orgánico) que deben aplicar y, además, lo entierran alrededor de cada planta y lo cubren con una capa de tierra y hojarasca para disminuir la volatilización.  La mayoría de productores de ADESC prepara su propio abono orgánico con pulpa de café, desechos orgánicos de la casa y boñiga de caballo, y ahora toman la precaución de mantenerlo siempre bien cubierto.  Como parte de un plan piloto, Rainforest Alliance los ayudará a instalar un biodigestor para aprovechar el gas metano de estas composteras y obtener así gas para las casas.

En el centro de acopio de ADESC, que funciona como sede del grupo, los miembros se reúnen regularmente para capacitarse y discutir sobre mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático y otros temas de agricultura sostenible. En la visita vimos algunos materiales elaborados para registrar los cambios que han notado en las temperaturas, lluvia y disponibilidad de agua en los últimos años, así como mapas sobre zonas de riesgo en caso de emergencias naturales.

“Siempre habíamos visto estos cambios pero hasta ahora sabemos que se debe al cambio climático y que nuestras acciones pueden ayudar a disminuir sus consecuencias”, aseguró Arnoldo Cifuentes, el gerente de la asociación.

Nuestra última parada fue la casa de doña Leticia. Su patio para secado al sol del café estaba vacío porque no era tiempo de cosecha, pero desde ahí vimos su beneficio húmedo (cada productor de ADESC cuenta con uno), aprendimos cómo funciona la pequeña despulpadora, la pila de fermentación, el correteo para clasificación y conocimos algunas prácticas sostenibles implementadas en el proceso de beneficiado. Por ejemplo, para reducir el consumo de agua se aplica el sistema de recirculación de las aguas usadas en el lavado y la fermentación; además tienen plantas de tratamiento que filtran el agua residual de forma natural hacia la tierra, en lugar de tirarlas a los arroyos como se hacía antes.

Con la ayuda de la Asociación Nacional de Cooperativas Eléctricas Rurales (NRECA) y Rainforest Alliance,  la casa de doña Leticia también

Los arroyos que antes recibían las aguas de desecho de los beneficios de café lucen ahora limpios gracias a las buenas prácticas de agricultura implementadas para la certificación Rainforest Alliance.

está participando en un proyecto de eficiencia eléctrica que se espera expandir a otros productores de ADESC. Al final vimos donde ella prepara su abono orgánico, su pequeño vivero y la diminuta parcela que le dio a su hijo de 8 años, para que él haga su propia huerta aplicando las buenas prácticas agrícolas  que sus padres implementan en el café.

“Nosotros somos visionarios”, dijo doña Leticia cuando le preguntamos cuál es la motivación que los ha llevado a lograr este cambio. “No hacemos esto por plata sino porque el ser humano necesita seguir teniendo aire para respirar, los pájaros necesitan árboles para vivir y comida para migrar y porque tenemos que pensar en las futuras generaciones, en dejarles un lugar para que ellos puedan seguir viviendo”.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

Yessenia Soto — our Costa Rica-based communications associate — shares inspiring stories from a recent trip to meet with climate-friendly coffee farmers in Northern Guatemala.

After a five-hour drive that started in Guatemala City and took us through gorgeous pastoral landscapes, we reached Huehuetenango in Northern Guatemala. On the steep slopes of its mountains, farmers grow the country’s most coveted coffee, which some say is among the best in the world.

The beautiful view from Vista Hermosa.

Our final destination was Vista Hermosa, a two-and-a-half hour drive north of the capital of Huehuetenango. That remote coffee farming hamlet is the seat of the Los Chujes Sustainable, Social and Economic Development Association (ADESC, for its name in Spanish) which represents 68 small farmers. This year, those farmers became the first group in the world to earn Rainforest Alliance verification for climate-friendly practices, a voluntary add-on to Rainforest Alliance certification. In order to earn verification, these farmers implemented a series of agricultural practices aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing carbon stocks and strengthening their capacity for climate change mitigation and adaption.

We had come to the region to learn how the group became a model of sustainable agriculture. Five members of the board welcomed us with a brew they proudly called “hard, hard coffee,” the local term for strictly hard bean — or strictly high grown — coffee which must be produced at least 4,500 feet above sea level. The ADESC farms are 5,900 feet above sea level.

As we savored the unique flavor, they told us about their association. The farmers began meeting in 1994 to discuss strategies to improve their farm management. However, it wasn’t until 2006 that approximately 40 producers founded ADESC — since then, they’ve worked together to market their coffee, improve its quality, increase farm production and reduce their impact on the environment.

One of the first goals of the newly formed association was to implement sustainable agriculture practices and earn the Rainforest Alliance Certified™ seal. With plenty of hard work and support from the Nespresso AAA program — a sustainable quality program run by Nespresso, which buys all of ADESC’s coffee — the group earned the green frog seal in 2008.

“Before, we did many things without knowing they were wrong or could be done better,” confessed Servando del Valle, the association’s president. In order to get their farms certified, ADESC members improved their waste management, reduced agrochemical use, began using safety gear when applying chemicals, banned hunting and deforestation, created terraces by planting living barriers to prevent soil erosion and began treating wastewater to protect the aquifer.

ADESC member Leticia Monzóninvited us to her 8.6-acre (3.5-hectare) farm, Finca El Jardín (in English, “The Garden”), to show us the

Leticia Monzón, owner of an 8.6-acre (3.5-hectare) farm called Finca El Jardín.

changes she had made. First, she pointed out the clear stream that flows through her farm — a stream that used be polluted with wastewater from her coffee mill. She then showed us the terraces she created by planting living barriers amidst the rows of sturdy coffee bushes and pointed out spider webs in the branches, a reflection of her reduced agrochemical use which has brought the good bugs back. She explained that before getting her farm certified, she never thought about its importance for conserving biodiversity. Now, she is happy to see how many birds live on her farm and eat the fruit from its shade trees.

In addition to environmental benefits, farmers have improved their organization. ADESC now has a board of directors and holds regular meetings. The group has worked together to develop their community and ensure the safety and welfare of their workers, who are primarily family members.

At the same time, certification has brought economic benefits. Nespresso pays the organization a premium of US $8 per sack of coffee. ADESC uses 44 percent of that premium to ensure that its farms stay certified, and divides the remaining 56 percent among its members. Last year alone, ADESC sold 8,000 sacks of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee to Nespresso.

On our tour of the farms, we learned about the work done to earn Rainforest Alliance verification for compliance with additional climate criteria. Mario Lopez, a Guatemala-based project coordinator at the Rainforest Alliance, told us that he suggested that ADESC members participate in the initiative in 2011. He was quick to note, however, that they shouldn’t expect to get a better price for their coffee since it was a new initiative. They accepted the challenge at once and attained verification in early 2012, after completing evaluations and training workshops, developing improvement plans, compiling forest inventories, quantifying the biomass of their farms and other efforts.

Mario Dionisio Valle on his 3.6-acre (1.2-hectare) farm El Rivetío.

At El Rivetío, a 3-acre farm (approx 1.2-ha) that belongs to Mario Dionisio Valle, we saw some of the practices that he implemented to earn climate verification. Valle happily explained that his farm has four trees for every 213 square feet (64 square meters), which provide shade for the coffee, capture carbon and produce oxygen. The same can be said for the hedges and other living barriers he has planted to prevent erosion. Measurements have shown that ADESC farms capture 75 tons of carbon per hectare and that amount could be increased by five to ten tons by planting trees and living fences along farm boundaries and ravines.

Valle also explained that he took steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to make his farm more climate-friendly. Through the training, he learned that fertilizer is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, so he and the other ADESC farmers use annual soil analyses to determine the ideal amount and mix of chemical and organic fertilizers to apply. They place fertilizer in holes around each plant, and cover it with a layer of soil and leaf litter to reduce volatilization. ADESC farmers also make organic fertilizer by composting coffee pulp, kitchen waste and horse manure, which they are careful to keep covered.

Members meet regularly at the association’s coffee collection center—which serves as its headquarters for training–to discuss climate change mitigation and adaptation and other sustainable agriculture issues. During our visit, we saw some of the records they’ve compiled of changes in temperature, rainfall and water availability, as well as maps of areas where the risk of natural disasters is the greatest.

“We had always noticed these changes, but only now do we understand that they are due to climate change and that we can help to reduce its impact,” said ADESC manager Arnoldo Cifuentes.

Our last stop was Leticia Monzón’s home. Her coffee-drying patio was empty because it wasn’t harvest time, but she showed us her mini

A clean stream on Leticia Monzón’s farm.

coffee mill (each ADESC farmer has one), with its pulper and cement tanks used to wash and ferment coffee beans. She explained some of the sustainable practices she has implemented in the milling process, such as reducing water consumption by recycling water used for washing and fermentation. The mill’s wastewater, which she used to dump into a stream, now flows into a sedimentation pool, where it filters into the ground.

With help from the Rainforest Alliance and the National Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives (NRECA, for its name in Spanish), Leticia is also participating in an electricity saving project that will later be expanded to include other ADESC members. She showed us where she produces organic fertilizer, invited us into her small nursery, and brought us to a tiny plot where her 8-year-old son has planted his own garden using the same good agricultural practices that his parents apply on their coffee farm.

“We are visionaries,” Leticia said, when asked what motivated her and other ADESC members to make so many changes. “We aren’t doing this for money, but because human beings need to have air to breathe, the birds need trees to live in and food for migrating, and because we have to think about future generations and leave them a place where they can live.”

10 Reasons to Celebrate Cooperatives

Why celebrate International Day of the Cooperatives? Because cooperatives can help to shape a better world by promoting sustainable development, strengthening communities and empowering members…

1. Cooperatives can help to generate higher incomes and more efficient production. By coming together in an organization, smallholder farmers can aggregate their production and achieve a better price for their product.
2. Cooperatives have their members’ best interest in mind. Where traders might aim to keep farmers ignorant of market prices so that they can pay the minimum, cooperatives work to keep their members informed and pay the most that the market allows. A cooperative is often a better alternative to a local trader because it is a service organization managed by (and for) farmers.
3. An effective cooperative offers a range of services to its members — not just buying and selling goods, but also providing credit at reasonable interest rates and making advance payments.
4. Cooperatives can help to facilitate training and technical assistance. An organization — like the Rainforest Alliance — providing technical assistance cannot necessarily visit hundreds of farmers in one group individually, so cooperatives provide an organizing unit to help farmers improve their skills and practices.
5. Cooperatives can strengthen communities. “In my village certain people were not on speaking terms for a long time,” says Désire Kouassi, president of the Rainforest Alliance Certified Cooperative Agricole La Paix d’Issia (COPAPAIX) in Côte d’Ivoire. “But since we started working together and learning together and realizing that we can benefit from the experience of others, people have started talking together again and fraternity and solidarity have been re-established.”
6. Cooperatives can play a key role in ensuring food security and poverty reduction.
7. Cooperatives can provide a feeling of belonging. “Farmers can feel a part of something and there is clearer communication between farmers bringing them much closer together,” explains Edmond Konan, head of the Global Business Consulting Company in Côte d’Ivoire.
8. Cooperatives support marginalized groups, offering employment opportunities for women, the elderly, the disabled and others facing discrimination.
9. They can act as powerful engines for local growth because they are so attuned to local needs.
10. They feature prominently on the list of smallholder groups (especially cocoa and coffee farmers) that have achieved Rainforest Alliance certification.

A Community of Cocoa Farmers Collaborates to Confront Challenges

Meet a group of villagers in Papua, Indonesia fighting to earn a decent living from cocoa, their only marketable crop. Since 2008, the local crop has been ravaged by disease and threatened by a decline in world cocoa prices.

Today, the community of 100 farmers is embarking on what may be a long and challenging journey toward Rainforest Alliance certification.

A Coffee Farmer (and Mother) Shares Her Perspective on Rainforest Alliance Certification

Recently, we asked Leticia Monzon — owner of a Rainforest Alliance Certified farm in Northern Guatemala — what certification meant to her. We were inspired by her words…

Community Forestry in Oaxaca, Mexico

Rainforest Alliance communications specialist Eugenio Fernandez Vasquez discusses our work to ensure that community forestry businesses are harvesting and processing wood sustainably, sharing benefits equitably and developing smart, responsible business plans.