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

in their cooperative and communities. By contrast, Adrian González and Santos González
Ponce, as small-scale farmers, benefit from stable credits and sales but are not on the
forefront of cooperative decisions, do not host potential buyers, and do not grow enough
coffee annually to participate in high-value auctions. As explained earlier, the small-scale
farmers must physically engage in labor on their farms. Medium- and large-scale growers
can afford to hire laborers and thus give time to cooperative administration, marketing
efforts, and training programs.
Danilo made a very poignant statement regarding the collective nature of organic
production and cooperative organization in reference to the (then upcoming) 2006
presidential election. The race was between Daniel Ortega, the former Sandinista
president, and Eduardo Montealegre, the US-backed, neoliberal candidate. In an effort to
gain rural and agrarian support for the Sandinista candidate, Venezuelan president Hugo
Chávez sent “10 tons of urea for fertilizer, to be sold at a very low price to small
producers and cooperatives through a Sandinista business” (Envio 2006:298).
Sitting in the kitchen of the farmhouse, Danilo and I were having a couple of
beers and discussing the upcoming election. I asked him if he would be interested in
cheap urea even though he is a certified organic farmer.
“¿Usted aprovecharía de esa urea venezolana?” I asked.
“¿Sabe una cosa?” Danilo replied, “Si Daniel [Ortega] no gana esta elección me
salgo de esta cosa. Si ganan los Liberales no vale la pena seguir en la
cooperativa ni produciendo orgánico (You know what? If Daniel doesn’t win I’m
out of this thing. If the Liberals win it’s not worth staying in the cooperative or
farming organic).”
“¿De veras? ¿Usted se acabaría con todo esto? ¿Vendería sólo después de haber
trabajado tanto para organizarse y vender bien? ¿Por qué? (Really? You would
get rid of all this? You’d sell alone after working so hard to organize and sell
well? Why?),” I responded.
189