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Organic Coffee Instead of Coca |
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By Yadira Ferrer*
Peasant
farming families in Colombia are abandoning their illegal drug crops
and staking their bets on fair trade organic coffee. They have already
exported almost 5,000 sacks of coffee beans this year.
BOGOTA - A coffee-exporting company in Colombia,
owned by small farming families that used to grow the illegal coca
crop -- the raw material for cocaine -- this year exported around
5,000 60-kilo sacks of organic coffee. Now the aim is to consolidate
the business and improve their communities.
Exposurca is the export arm of Cosurca, a cooperative of small farmers,
including Indians, in the department of Cauca, a mountainous area
in southwest Colombia that is otherwise ideal for the illegal cultivation
of coca. The cooperative was established five years ago, and now
involves 1,624 families, with some 1,200 operating small coffee
plantations.
The fields of organic coffee -- grown without chemical fertilizers
or pesticides -- cover 78 hectares of a total 148 hectares that
used to grow coca bush. The illicit plants have been eradicated.
The coffee varieties Typica, Caturra and Colombia are exported to
Spain, United States, France, Britain, Netherlands and Japan, among
other countries, which pay an average of two dollars per pound (0.45
kg). The average price of non-organic Colombian coffee is less than
a dollar per pound on the New York exchange.
''Our company broke the traditional marketing scheme, as our farmers
did away with sales intermediaries so receive more for their coffee,''
Exposurca director René Ausecha told Tierramérica.
Cosurca began exporting coffee through intermediaries in 2001, and
Exposurca was formed in 2004, with a two-million-dollar investment
from the United Nations and contributions from the Colombian government.
For Floro Ruiz, a coffee grower from the town of Argelia, the organic
coffee project is serious business -- it has allowed the families
involved to reinstate their personal values and improve their income.
The small farmers who turned to growing coca did so as a means of
financial survival, ''and when an alternative is found, as in our
case, we feel proud that we don't have to carry the weight of relying
on an illicit crop,'' Ruiz told Tierramérica.
In addition to coffee, the peasant farmers who have given up their
coca crops are growing plantain, fruits and vegetables.
The southern region of Cauca is one of the clash points where government
armed forces run up against leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary
groups, which seek control over the illicit drug crops.
Pressure to increase coca production in the region led farmers to
give up growing food crops for their own consumption, created distortions
in the labor market, triggered inflation in the local economy --
and brought with it more violence.
Environmentally, Cauca has suffered pressure on its ecosystems:
figures from the Environment Ministry indicate that to grow one
hectare of coca, four hectares of forest are destroyed. Furthermore,
unique species have been destroyed, the soil degraded and rivers
contaminated by the chemicals used to process coca leaf into cocaine.
The coffee sold by Exposurca is certified ''fair trade'' by the
Fair Trade Labeling Organization International (FLO), guaranteeing
coffee growers income at least 45 percent higher than the average
price on the New York exchange.
According to Freddy Urbano, the project's technical advisor, coffee
exports under FLO conditions ''provide the opportunity to generate
economic resources to invest in the crops, the family and in organizational
strength.''
Sandro Calvani, representative from the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime, said during an Exposurca presentation in April
that ''the fair market can relax because with the creation of an
exportation arm there is a more equitable redistribution of the
coffee revenues amongst the growers, and ensures that the small
farmers will see their earnings increase more than 40 percent.''
The UN, through its reconversion programs, has invested in products
like coffee to discourage the drug trade, faced with the boom in
illicit drug crops that occurred in Colombia in the 1990s, he said.
Colombia is the world's second leading coffee producer, with annual
harvests averaging between 10.5 and 11.5 million 60-kilo sacks.
* Yadira Ferrer is a Tierramérica contributor.
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