i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

for work in the past five years? If so, where to? And why? Of the 68 surveys conducted,
29 responded that they are farm laborers. Of those 29, 19 work on organic farms in Las
Grietas. Of the 10 respondents who do not work on organic farms, only one is a full-time
worker at a large hacienda, La Gloria. The remaining workers on conventional farmers
are seasonal. All nine of the seasonal workers on conventional farms have traveled in
search of work in the five years prior to my survey. Their destinations were El Salvador,
Costa Rica, and Managua. Their explanations were simple: “Te pagan en dolares (They
pay in dollars)” [in the case of El Salvador]; “Las condiciones son mejores, las fincas son
limpias (The conditions are better, the farms are clean)”; and in the case of Managua,
“Voy a la capital para trabajar como doméstica cuando me necesitan. Sufro con cortar
en estos cafetales. Nos pagan mal y nos tratan peor (I go to the capital [Managua] to
work as a maid when they need me. I suffer from having to pick coffee in these farms.
They pay poorly and treat us worse).” The following personal accounts support the
assertion that workers on organic farms are better off because of the constant need for
manual on-farm labor.
In Las Grietas, among the small to medium-sized farmers with whom I worked,
the laborers were few, and many farmers depended on family support. Danilo, for
example, employs four or five workers during the growing season and then hires as many
as twenty for the harvest on his 13 manzana farm operation. His son Bismarck is
responsible for the farm tasks. Danilo also has an hombre de confianza or hijo de casa, 43
43 “Hombre de confianza” directly translates to “man of trust.” This relationship is
common among business owners and their workers in Nicaragua, where the employee is
entrusted with security, finances, and operations and is awarded special privileges as a
result. “Hijo de casa” is translates as “son of the house.” In Danilo’s case, one person,
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