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

apparently the more diligent farmers do benefit from the participation of poorer, less
capable farmers in the cooperative arrangement. Development funds that small-scale
farmers draw in serve to benefit the needs of successful farmers as well.
At present, farmer-owned cooperatives cannot wholly subsume the role of coyotes
in San Juan; there is room for both entities to exist under current market constraints. This
puts the cooperative in a delicate relationship with the local agrarian community. On the
one hand, the co-op presumably belongs to its members; on the other, it must monitor
farmer activity and work against the image of being just another empresa (company)
trying to get the best of the farmers. This tension, combined with the need for active
membership involvement, operational transparency, and equal access to resources, makes
for a very fragile existence for coffee cooperatives throughout the export-driven
developing world, and in Las Segovias de Nicaragua in particular. As explained, the
coyotes buy at low-season price and sell at high, whereas the distributor, the cooperative,
and other lenders loan a certain amount of money, and when the harvest comes in the
farmers can repay with high-value coffee There is a substantial difference between the
coyotes/microlenders with their high interest rates and the co-ops. Coyotes are essentially
buying ‘coffee futures’ (commodities exchange) at a risk. They will lose personal
investment should the prices drop or should farmers not come through with the coffee
that was prepurchased. The co-op, in contrast, can absorb price drops and can also ensure
‘floor’ prices through marketing to organic and Fair Trade consumers.
Even as the demand for organic and Fair Trade coffee increases, co-ops still
struggle to recruit sufficient farmers to meet that demand. Co-op supporters attributed
this to campesino laziness, idleness, or lack of enthusiasm. Even former Sandinistas are
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