ABOUT

Beatriz Avalos is a professor of Ecology at the Universidad del Mar in Puerto Angel, Oaxaca, Mexico. Educated at Stanford University, she is a leading expert on the eco-systems of southern Mexico and the impacts of coffee-growing and other economic activities on biodiversity in the region.

INTERVIEW

"Coffee suddenly became a very cheap crop that no longer provided income to families."

I have always been interested in forest preservation, but also in social issues. Coffee is so linked to the income of communities, to local economies, that what ever happens to coffee affects what happens in the community.

In 1989, things started getting very bad for coffee, a key product for small farmers, in Mexico. The International Coffee Organization (ICO), which operated like a coffee cartel globally, limited the amounts of coffee sold in world markets, keeping the price of coffee artificially high. But in 1989 that agreement broke up and ICO was eliminated. Producers in Brazil, Mexico, and Columbia started selling their stocks in world markets and the world price of coffee just plummeted.

Exacerbating the coffee crisis was the Mexican government's dismantling of the government financed Mexican Coffee Institute (IMECAFE). IMECAFE provided relatively high guaranteed prices to producers, cheap credit, cheap inputs and a guaranteed market. IMECAFE was the middle man so the producer did not have to worry about how the coffee was going to be sold. Coffee suddenly became a very cheap crop that no longer provided income to families. Before the crisis, coffee provided ninety percent of the income for the average coffee producing family.

"It is no longer worth it to harvest coffee."

The shock to the coffee economy was so significant that it is very easy to come to the conclusion that the Zapatista movement of 1994 and the EPR (Ejército Popular Revolucionario / Revolutionary People's Army) movement in 1996 were sparked by the coffee crisis. It is not a coincidence that both movements occurred in big coffee producing areas, especially shade coffee, which is a kind of coffee grown in both of these regions, Chiapas and the Sierra Sur de Oaxaca.

Now, the coffee growers, perhaps 17,000 of them, are in a big crisis. Coffee is more expensive to produce than to sell. Every producer that produces 100 pounds of coffee is loosing 30 dollars, at least. It is no longer worth it to harvest coffee.

"Coffee plantations are either being abandoned or they are being cut down."

So what do coffee farmers do? Either they abandon their land and go somewhere else looking for a job in Mexico City or the U.S., or they start clearing the shade coffee forest to grow maize, beans for subsistence, cattle, you name it. Coffee plantations are either being abandoned or they are being cut down.

If our efforts continue to be so focused on very few communities, and are not designed to address the problem generally, and are not going to enable the coffee farmers to improve their situation, then we will see the total destruction of all these forests. There will be irreversible damages to biodiversity, to the soil, tremendous erosion and the aquifers, which service the people that live in the low lying areas near the coast, will all dry up.

"In Oaxaca we have some of the greatest biodiversity in the world."

As long as we think of shade coffee as only a coffee producing system, things are bound to get worse with time. We need to look at coffee in a different light.

First of all, shade coffee is a forest, an ecosystem. It provides biodiversity protection. In Oaxaca we have some of the greatest biodiversity in the world. This area is classified as the global biodiversity hot spot. There are several species of plants and animals which only exist here.

Biodiversity is a very valuable asset for all of humanity. The forests provide erosion control. Abundant forest cover prevents floods, mud slides, infrastructure destruction of bridges, roads, and dams.

"Certification is the necessary first step."

Certification is the necessary first step. It makes the consumer conscious about the product he/she is consuming and all the environmental attributes associated with that product.

For example, organic certification signals to the consumer that that product is free of pesticides and was grown in an environmentally friendly, soil-protective way. Being able to play a role in protecting the environment has value for the consumer and so he/she is willing to pay a higher price for a certified product. Certification is one way of creating markets for coffee and the environmental attributes associated with it.

When we talk about Fair Trade we are talking about justice, about making the public conscious about all the social attributes associated with coffee. Consumer will pay a higher price for a coffee if he knows that a high percent of the price goes to the farmer.

Usually the coffee producer gets a very small portion of the final price. Fair Trade guarantees to the consumer that a higher proportion of the final price is actually reaching the farmer and the community to support education and social programs.

"Very few organizations are working directly with farmers in an effective, honest, transparent way."

The certification schemes have reached only a very small proportion of farmers who need to get higher prices for coffee. The reasons are diverse. The process of certification is long, very expensive, and requires the farmers to be very well organized. These are challenges for poor farmers, many of whom hardly speak Spanish and do not have a formal education.

The amount of resources being devoted to helping communities or individual farmers or groups of farmers who are certified is still very limited, in Mexico at least. Less than one or two percent of the farms are certified. The great majority does not know anything about certification. Very few organizations are working directly with farmers in an effective, honest, transparent way. There are many opportunist organizations that are getting money but are hardly doing things that are really effective for farmers.

"The certification criteria are very strict and are not necessarily realistic."

The certification criteria are very strict and are not necessarily realistic. For example, organic certification requires the farmers to build terracing and compost with inputs, like lime and cow dung. Very few farmers have the money to do this. We need to change the criteria of organic certification so that it adapts to local conditions.

Both criteria, the composting and the terracing, are totally unnecessary for shade coffee because shade coffee plantations have a permanent vegetation cover and there is no erosion, and thus no need for terracing. Additionally, the pulp from the coffee is a natural fertilizer so the need for composting is totally superfluous. The organic criteria were probably generated for full-sun coffee and are not functional for shade coffee.

"We should face the fact that child labor is a reality in coffee."

Shade certification criteria also require a very specific combination and numbers of certain shade trees to guarantee a sufficient bird biodiversity. What is worse is that the shade certification, such as the Smithsonian Institution's certification, also requires organic certification. It's just too strict.

Furthermore, the requirement that no child labor can be used is artificial. We should face the fact that child labor is a reality in coffee. Children are the best harvesters of coffee because they can get into the bushes and harvest even more coffee per unit of time than an adult.

As long as we maintain criteria for certification that are designed in an office in Washington, D.C. or in Paris, without a deep understanding of local conditions, those kinds of certification schemes are bound to remain very elitist and very limited in their impact.

"They are very well aware that the criteria for certification have been too narrow."

The Forest Stewardship Council is aware that they need to make certification more available to people who live in the forest. They are very well aware that the criteria for certification have been too narrow and so they are starting to look at alternatives, for example, non-forest product certification.

They are also starting to modify their criteria so that there is a first stage, a second stage, and a third stage. This allows producers to become certified at a very early stage and then graduate, so to speak, to a second and then third stage. A gradual process makes certification available to more farmers.

We have to re-educate consumers to start looking at forests in more than just a sentimental way. We have to move from what we would call sentimentalism to reality, and reality means paying for the services or loosing them.

"One of the key problems of Fair Trade, as well as with the organic market, is that it is a very limited market."

One of the key problems of Fair Trade, as well as with the organic market, is that it is a very limited market, and the volumes sold are very small. The possibility of expanding to large plantations would only be a win-win situation if it would not displace small farmers. If the market would expand and consumers would buy more Fair Trade coffee than they are buying now, and that again implies education. The consumer has to be willing to pay a higher price, and that is where the key lies: unless the public is convinced of the benefits than the market will remain a very small market.

Any other kind of certification lies with the big companies. Imagine Folgers being able to say to the public that at least two percent of the coffee in this can of coffee is guaranteed certified Fair Trade. That would be a great thing for sales because it would reach a market that is not the gourmet, very educated coffee consumer, which is the one who consumes organic coffee right now. It would reach a more general consumer who is concerned about the environment but not willing to pay a higher price. The possibility of having some proportion of certified coffee into the big standard coffee can that is sold by the big companies is a good possibility for expanding the market.

"We have to have to start creating markets for services that we as a society have been receiving for free."

We have to be more flexible in our standards. The standards have to fit local conditions. Certification is not the solution: if we were to focus all our energies into certification, we still would not solve the problem of shade coffee.

We need to think of coffee as an ecosystem, which provides coffee and environmental services, such as erosion control, biodiversity protection, aquifer recharge and carbon dioxide sequestration. All of those services benefit society as a whole, locally, regionally, even globally, and we are not paying for those services.

Full sun, highly technified coffee plantations are the preferred growing method because it is most profitable. Let's make it more profitable to grow shade coffee by paying for the environmental services associated with shade. The incentive would be payment for aquifer recharge, for erosion control, for organic, in other words, for not polluting

"These groups would be required to pay a water tax that is very clearly earmarked for farmers who have shade coffee."

If those farmers up in the hills start receiving payments for the services which they have been providing to society for free, then there may come a point when it is more profitable for them to leave the coffee forest standing and maintain it rather than to clear it. And changing all coffee growing systems into shade coffee would reduce coffee supplies in the world market and prices would automatically go up.

The markets for environmental service provided by shade coffee have to be both local and global. For example, local markets would support watershed protection to prevent erosion to provide aquifer recharge. Who would be the constituencies for these markets? Who would be the consumers of these benefits? Who have been the consumers of these services without paying?

The local population, the big hotels which are big consumers of water, and the coastal population. These groups would be required to pay a water tax that is very clearly earmarked for farmers who have shade coffee or other kinds of forests in these watersheds of the coast. This water tax for watershed protection would be collected by local governments or a local and very accountable NGO and then distributed to farmers within the watersheds.

"Bioprospecting activities are happening all over the world in areas very rich in biodiversity."

There are several options in regards to biodiversity protection, where the benefits are global. In fact, bioprospecting activities are happening all over the world in areas very rich in biodiversity. Who pays for those services? The big drug companies. The terms of the contract would have to clearly state that the benefits are distributed to the people, and not with the local government.

Furthermore, it would have to be immediate. The people cannot wait for the drug companies to make money out of the drugs that they find and then pay the royalties; they need the money now. So the contract would have to be designed to provide payments in the short run for these people. Selling the right of bioprospecting would be a good way to provide payments for biodiversity protection.

"The carbon sequestered in this forest benefits the whole world. It is a deterrent to climate change and therefore needs to be paid by a global mechanism."

Another way to support biodiversity protection would be for the government to tax the global carbon market. The carbon sequestered in this forest benefits the whole world. It is a deterrent to climate change and therefore needs to be paid by a global mechanism.

Private companies which have commitments of CO2 emission reductions under the Kyoto protocol could pay to have part of those emission reductions as credits by sequestering carbon dioxide in a place like Oaxaca.

"The coffee problem is not a Mexican problem, it is a global problem."

The coffee problem is not a Mexican problem, it is a global problem. The immediate consequences of that may be very radical in terms of social and political instability and we know what can happen with social and political instability.

The reason for solving the shade coffee problem in Mexico is very clear for the United States public. In longer terms, the environmental consequences are also important. In the short term we have another consequence that is very clear: if there is an economic crisis in these local communities, migration will go north.

"To transform that community into an entrepreneurial community in the modern sense of the word takes a very long time - generations."

To change the way a community looks at the world and to transform that community into an entrepreneurial community in the modern sense of the word takes a very long time - generations. It takes education, organization, technology, most of which are not present now. It is a very fragile situation.

Unless the outsider, with his western skills comes in and stays for a long time, things are bound to go back to normal as soon as the outsider leaves. The change in communities has to be a structural change in the mindset of the people, and it will take at least one or two generations to accomplish.