Giving coffee growers a chance for a fair break

Buying coffee from Fairtrade allows the people behind the coffee production enjoy better lives - as you enjoy your coffee, writes Iva Pocock

In Costa Rica, school holidays have traditionally been scheduled around the coffee harvest. From November to February, thousands of children spend their holidays picking coffee beans.

Guillermo Vargas is no exception. He first picked coffee as an eight-year-old on his grandfather's farm.

"We spent all our holidays picking coffee from 6 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, with a half day on Saturday", he explains. When he was 13, his father bought a farm and joined a co-operative, so Vargas then picked beans there, along with his brothers and sisters. At the end of the season, he and his siblings were allowed to work on other farms in order to earn money for clothes or schoolbooks.

He has no bad memories of childhood days spent working other than of ants and wasps: "We still had time to play soccer in the evening, and at the weekends and I always had an opportunity to go to school". He was one of the lucky ones. His father had taught at a primary school as a young man and gave great emphasis to education. Vargas went away to secondary school, as there was none in the locality, and from there he gained a scholarship to university.

On returning to his home province, Puntarenas, in the north Pacific region of Costa Rica, he worked on conservation and reafforestation in his community. But in 1986, he bought a small coffee farm of 5.5 hectares with two of his 11 brothers, his father and three other neighbours, with plans to work co-operatively. They continue to work this farm together, but have now joined a larger co-operative of 77 other small coffee producers, Coopesanta Elena. Two years ago, Vargas was appointed manager of Coopesanta Elena.

His co-op is lucky for two reasons. Firstly, because their land produces the best-quality coffee - it's at 1400 metres, just beneath the so-called humid cloud forest, where clouds sit above the rainforest all year long. Secondly, they sell all their export quality beans for Fairtrade prices.

"If we didn't have Fairtrade sales, most of the farmers would be cutting down their trees," says Vargas. Just a few months ago, a producer would only get US $0.50 per pound of green coffee beans on the regular market, which would not cover production and processing costs for farmers. "I need at least 60 to 80 US cents per pound to cover my basic costs," he says.

"If I go tomorrow to sell a pound of green beans at Fairtrade, I will make $1.26," he explains. It is still a fraction of the price that consumers here in Dublin pay for their coffee. Vargas tasted a cappuccino in one Dublin coffee bar for €3.50, which only contains 10 grams of coffee. For the same price, you could buy 2 kilograms of coffee from him, at Fairtrade prices.

While he recognises that there are costs in transforming coffee to the cup, he thinks it "would be nice to reduce the distance between producers and consumers in a way that is better for both.

"For producers, this would mean that most of the money would go to those who are doing most of the work and taking most of the risk. For the consumers, if we were able to compete with the multi-national companies, we could sell directly to consumers," says Vargas.

Peter Gaynor, co-ordinator of Fairtrade Mark Ireland explains that coffee prices are already being driven down by global over-production of coffee by two million sacks per year. The rock bottom prices paid to most coffee producers (in real terms they are at their lowest in more than 100 years) feeds the dependency of the coffee industry on child labour, says Gaynor. "Tens of thousands of children go to work on plantations rather than go to school because farmers are being paid so little for their produce that they can only afford to employ children," he says.

In contrast, co-operatives such as Coopesanta Elena place great emphasis on education - and, because they are receiving a fairer price for their produce, they can afford to support the education of their producers' children.

"We are trying to develop our income from tourism, in addition to coffee production," explains Vargas. Until 10 years ago, coffee production was the mainstay of the Costa Rican economy, but now tourism is the most important economic sector. But most tourists are only interested in wildlife or taking the sun. The co-op is developing tours of producers' farms and ways of enabling people to stay with families.

"We want them to share in our culture, to meet and share in our way of life," says Vargas. Such an experience builds understanding.

He is here at the invitation of Fairtrade Mark Ireland, the organisation which promotes Fairtrade goods in Ireland, for the launch of the first international Fairtrade logo. Already worn by Bono when receiving his Meteor awards, the logo will have all kinds of benefits, says Gaynor. "For producers from the Third World, they will only have to put one label on their goods, instead of seven. For Irish consumers, it should mean greater choice of Fairtrade goods."

Last year, the wholesale value of Fairtrade Mark coffee sales in Ireland topped the €1 million mark for the first time. Internationally, Fairtrade coffee sales in 2001 meant an extra $29 million was received by small coffee producers. "If you buy Fairtrade, it does add up," says Gaynor.

For Vargas and his co-operative, Fairtrade means they can invest in the development of their coffee production and plan for their children's future.