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

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there not enough trucks in Nicaragua? And above all, they pay us badly and afterward they leave and purchase a new truck. The poor small farmers will not complain, but this is not fair). UCPCO was formed in 1992 to organize the campesino cooperatives left without support after the electoral loss of the Sandinista government. A local non-governmental organization called Cenzontle, Centro para la Participación Democrática y el Desarrollo (Center for Democratic Participation and Development), assisted in forming this cooperative union. UCPCO was also fortunate to receive the organizational and marketing support of Paul Rice, current president and CEO of Transfair USA, the sole Fair Trade certifier for coffee, tea, chocolate and other imports to the US. According to the Transfair USA website, Paul Rice spent 11 years in the Segovias region of Nicaragua as a rural development specialist. He worked directly “in the field with cooperative farmers, creating and implementing training programs aimed at developing small farmers’ organizational and business capacity.” The website also claims that “this firsthand field experience gave him an understanding for the weaknesses of the classic ‘development aid’ model as well as insight into alternative, market-based approaches to sustainable development.” 80 Paul Rice is credited with directing the UCPCO’s first shipment of certified organic coffee after the 1997-1998 season. Kelly and I heard Paul Rice mentioned at a holiday dinner with UCPCO board, administrators, and farmers at Las Palmeras restaurant in San Juan del Rio Coco. It was a banquet, with a gift exchange and various speeches. I was pleased to see multiple levels of the cooperative sharing and socializing together. This had not been my experience with the UCA or Corcasan, who held events 80 http://www.transfairusa.org/content/about/whoweare.php 216
only for a few select farmers. That night we ate roast pelibüey (wool-less sheep) and sipped Victoria pilsner as Heberto Rivas, board director and largest UCPCO farmer, told of the formation of their cooperative. He said they had formed in 1992 and were legally established in 1996 with the Cenzontle project. He spoke of their first export of organic coffee with the assistance of Paul Rice. He mentioned a “dark (oscura)” period that occurred recently when several board members and administrators embezzled funds from UCPCO and in turn brought legal sanctions upon the cooperative. Heberto Rivas is a striking presence. He is nearly six feet tall with dark hair and a large mustache. He is an outspoken Sandinista supporter and a cattle rancher as well. That night Heberto made two comments that signaled his view on cooperative relationships. First he mentioned that he had lent his truck to another co-op member so that he could take his ailing mother to the hospital in Estelí. Second, he illustrated the co- op’s openness to work with other community-based organizations. He referenced a covenant the UCPCO had reached with UNAG San Juan. Heberto made it clear that this agreement to certify and work with UNAG’s 87 small farmers was not hatched in “un salon de ejecutivos, ni en un hotel de lujo, se hizo sentado el la vereda (an executive conference room, nor a luxury hotel; it happened seated on the curb).” For Heberto, that is the way this cooperative works. The critical allusion to expensive venues for the creation of partnerships between groups was in direct reference to the national government, which spends enormous amounts on lavish meals for dignitaries while the populace suffers from poor services and infrastructure. It also alluded to the way that San Juan co-ops had functioned and brought 217
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Patrick W. Staib Candidate Anthropo
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COFFEE AND THE COUNTRYSIDE: SMALL F
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I heartily acknowle
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Informal Economy in San Juan del R
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Preface La sabiduria y la constante
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aftershocks of a war in this commun
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This chapter brings the reader into
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Introduction: The Fieldwork I first
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I had visited Matagalpa in 2000, wh
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agricultural extension agents 3 in
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Figure 1. Map of Nicaragua showing
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Nevertheless, San Juan was the idea
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Telpaneca today is a depressed muni
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Figure 2. Electoral map of San Juan
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espondents reported that at least o
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In my experience assisting small-sc
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fieldwork, including surveying, int
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crop aggregation meeting simply bec
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The following chapters are an overv
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Don Amado raised his family of six
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once-bustling colonial center of Nu
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One afternoon, while sitting on his
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Chapter 1 Regional Identity Formati
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Vásquez’ records indicate that t
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The native Segovians apparently coo
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The role of native Segovians was ke
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thousands 22 of passengers to Nicar
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The Pueblos de Indios stood in the
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industry leader and an advocate for
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The mid to late 1980s proved to be
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The Indigenous Revolt of 1881 and I
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These communities appear to have es
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sectors of society forced rural com
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Nationalist writers Gámez (1889),
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San Juan farmers’ understandings
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Sandinista Revolution made signific
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Sandino’s Influential Rebellion A
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Migrant workers in the Babilonia go
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In an ironic turn of events, the Sa
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Somoza regime and U.S. economic and
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The high ideals of the Sandinista r
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three special zones. Las Segovias,
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economic activity for rural communi
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Over time, some members wanted to g
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Chapter 3 Personal Histories of Agr
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to talk about the confiscation of S
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mountains, El Malacate, El Majaste,
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transport between Samarkanda and Sa
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high-altitude farmland. Don Mundo,
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areas. The Contras were former Guar
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effort. As Don Ramón put it, “la
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The project was called Huertos Fami
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who is president of the Carlos Fons
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Part Two Development: International
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I consider how organic coffee fits
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Small-Scale Agrarian Communities, D
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Although the ideological justificat
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(Richards 1985; Dennis 1987). Latin
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dominated much of Third World expor
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depleting natural resources or degr
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communities experience tensions and
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I sat in and helped facilitate seve
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urning. When the wind was calm, our
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Marvin was involved with a rural en
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Hurricane Mitch and the Internation
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Conclusion Because the plant and th
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The Farmers of Las Grietas Upon mee
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stonemason and carpenter for local
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for work in the past five years? If
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for Danilo, but not as closely as w
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The lives of these three families h
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Adrian was able to invest in a bene
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employee dormitories. The large far
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Wiwilí. Danilo had to show proof o
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in Nicaragua, and I encountered it
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from the training in production tec
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farmers who receive pre-harvest fin
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award committee, in 2003 and 2004.
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time farm staff. Danilo, on the oth
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were able to accumulate large tract
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natural resources, to conserve, pro
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The growers share a collective resp
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Danilo, Maragojipe does not thrive
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In August and September, farmers fo
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gallon bucket of coffee cherries, a
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section with smaller Catuaí plants
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The beans turn from a pale green to
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Rainforest Alliance and the Audubon
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Figure 5. Depulping coffee with mot
Page 179 and 180: engañar facilmente (They [the brok
Page 181 and 182: farmers are not adept at these proc
Page 183 and 184: The International Cup of Excellence
Page 185 and 186: Organic Farming Responsibilities In
Page 187 and 188: The Nicaraguan Rural Development In
Page 189 and 190: unsuccessfully combated, can only b
Page 191 and 192: Organic Fertilizers Many coffee far
Page 193 and 194: community. This means, for example,
Page 195 and 196: application. Most farmers had not e
Page 197 and 198: They returned that evening empty-ha
Page 199 and 200: Danilo’s fields as we talked with
Page 201 and 202: converting to organic production. H
Page 203 and 204: in their cooperative and communitie
Page 205 and 206: organizational strategies present m
Page 207 and 208: Part Three Outcomes: Cooperative Or
Page 209 and 210: organizational models that have bee
Page 211 and 212: coffee farmer, and José Manuel Mor
Page 213 and 214: El estado cuenta con nosotros porqu
Page 215 and 216: company” (la empresa) when talkin
Page 217 and 218: their estimated yield should cover
Page 219 and 220: firm, CISA/AGRO. Corcasan has its o
Page 221 and 222: earning higher prices for their far
Page 223 and 224: funding package. Corcasan brought i
Page 225 and 226: The credit model from banks and mic
Page 227 and 228: green coffee that weighed 412 quint
Page 229: This is not an exact measurement, b
Page 233 and 234: Tito is Heberto’s oldest son. He
Page 235 and 236: Towards the end of my fieldwork the
Page 237 and 238: Danilo received several of the bene
Page 239 and 240: prohibited on this farm).” Some f
Page 241 and 242: One afternoon in August 2006, near
Page 243 and 244: single gas station in San Juan. Bro
Page 245 and 246: camp, was only 30 kilometers away.
Page 247 and 248: emote parts of the community to fin
Page 249 and 250: apparently the more diligent farmer
Page 251 and 252: Chapter 8 Community-Based Campesino
Page 253 and 254: campesinos y del ecosistema. No hay
Page 255 and 256: Nosotros en la Procaoc vendemos apa
Page 257 and 258: have the capacity to supply the dem
Page 259 and 260: instructor, actually instructs farm
Page 261 and 262: transparencia (There’s problems w
Page 263 and 264: waste my time with the smaller farm
Page 265 and 266: Javier Vanegas, accountant for the
Page 267 and 268: conversation provided a foundation
Page 269 and 270: carpenter; and Jorge, the assistant
Page 271 and 272: “Nosotros [Guillermo Hernández]
Page 273 and 274: en el servicio. (They gave it to me
Page 275 and 276: The cooperative model for export ag
Page 277 and 278: day went on. The music changed to l
Page 279 and 280: would ask me about my research and
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familiar with the community of Guan
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houses and additional farmland, but
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statement was in reference to Corca
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colonial history in Chapter 1), the
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Conclusion Regional Segovian identi
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production and marketing of organic
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economic development programs. In t
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capacity of their fellow farmers. T
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encountered in trying to conserve r
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Benjamin, Medea 1987 Don’t Be Afr
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Enríquez, Laura J. 1991 Harvesting
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Guido, Clemente 1989 Los Conservado
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MAGFOR 2004 Estrategia para la reco
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Redford, Kent H. and Allyn. M. Stea
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Turner, Terence 1991 Representing,
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Appendix EL SIGÜIENTE COMUNICADO R
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