Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, Nica Notes, May 16th 2024
https://afgj.org/es-LA/nicanotes-theres-no-climate-justice-without-social-economic-justice
Nicaraguan Fairtrade coffee farmer, Flor Montenegro, has been in Bristol, England, from 29 April – 12 May, visiting schools, colleges and businesses talking about life in the highlands of Nicaragua, the impact of the climate crisis, and the benefits of Fairtrade to her family, community and cooperative.
Organic Fairtrade coffee grown by Flor Montenegro and the other women members
of SOPPEXCCA is sold in the US by Peet’s coffee chain under a brand name
‘Las Hermanas’ (The Sisters). Here we see Flor with her nursery of little coffee plants.
Flor lives with her three generational family in northern Nicaragua where she grows organic Fairtrade coffee for export and fruit and vegetables for family consumption and to sell locally. She also keeps bees (mostly for the pollination of the coffee flowers) and chickens and part of her land is forested.
Flor has multiple roles as a family member, as a farmer and entrepreneur, as a member of a co-operative, and a community activist. Flor and her husband, who has his own piece of land, are members of a 30 person strong co-operative called Isabelia half of whom are women. Along with an Executive Committee the co-operative has commissions responsible for education/training, credit, and gender.
How has Flor’s life changed over the course of her life time?
The area where Flor and her family live in the hills of northern Nicaragua was on the front line of the 1980s contra war. This decade-long US attempt to violently overthrow the democratically elected Sandinista government resulted in the deaths of 20,000 people.
The illegal war intensified in the second half of the 1980s despite an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that the US cease all such interference in Nicaragua’s internal affairs.
For Flor this meant spending her teenage years ‘fleeing from one place to another, often going hungry, and in constant fear of being killed by marauding gangs of contra.’ Her father was often away fighting with the Sandinista militia. Her mother was severely injured in a contra attack, injuries that affected the rest of her life; other members of her family disappeared presumed killed by the contra.
The 2018 attempted coup re-ignited these fears and trauma through the violence of the opposition road blocks, destruction of government buildings and threats from armed gangs roaming the countryside threatening farmers in the area where Flor lives.
Flor’s life and that of her family has dramatically changed through social progress as a result of Sandinista government programmes and the work of the co-operative SOPPEXCCA. Hope is always present but fears and anxiety remain through being a small-scale farmer on the front line of the climate crisis.
What being a member of SOPPEXCCA has meant to Flor–
The co-operative Isabelia in one of 16 co-operative that make up the Union of Co-operatives SOPPEXCCA. When Flor got married, her husband was a member of SOPPEXCCA: he owned some land and was the breadwinner; Flor did not even have any money of her own. However, this gradually changed when Flor too became involved with SOPPEXCCA, an organisation renowned for its commitment to gender equality.
Flor began by attending SOPPEXCCA gender trainings and little by little acquired one field and then built up to her current 14 hectares. Of particular note was the year that she won the SOPPEXCCA tasa de excelencia, (cup of excellence) award that brought recognition of her work, and motivated her to become more involved, to increase her commitment to her co-operative. She attributes all of this to the leadership of Fatima Ismael, the founder and general manager of SOPPEXCCA.
Why Fairtrade matters, moving from subsistence to sustainability–
Organic Fairtrade coffee grown by women members of SOPPEXCCA is sold in the US by Peet’s coffee chain under a brand name ‘Las Hermanas’ (The Sisters). Under this trading arrangement the women receive three premiums: one because the coffee is organic, the second because they are registered under the Fairtrade mark, and the third because the coffee grown by women. Flor explained that ‘without Fairtrade and organic premiums it would be impossible to cover production costs.’
How Flor invests these premiums–
The priorities for Flor are to use the funds to more effectively to combat climate related disease, invest in her own plant nursery so she is able to replace non-productive bushes thereby improving the quality of the coffee, and ensure that the labourers she contracts to work to maintain the coffee bushes and pick the coffee are fairly paid.
How the climate crisis has impacted Flor and other SOPPEXCCA producers–
Flor explained that main problem over the past two years has been lack of rain. This means that coffee flowers wither and fall off, coffee cherries don’t mature properly, and there is a greater prevalence of difficult to control diseases not seen in the area before. Yields have dropped significantly which in turn impacts income. All these factors also have a psychological impact in terms of extra work and levels of uncertainty and anxiety.
Measures that Flor and other SOPPEXCCA producers take to combat the impact of climate crisis and to increase biodiversity–
Diversification of crops: In addition to organic coffee Flor and her family grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables such as maize, dried and green beans, beetroot, squash, cabbages, and oranges. They grow these crops for their own consumption and to sell locally and in Managua. All these crops are organic and contribute to biodiversity.
Using composted fertilisers supplied by SOPPEXCCA: As far as possible everything is circular based on principle of returning to the earth what you take from it.
Planting native trees between rows of coffee: This conserves moisture in the soil during dry periods and prevents run off in heavy rains. Flor also has 1 ½ hectares of native hardwood forest.
Other challenges that producers face–
An additional challenge, also highlighted by UK farmers, is rising costs of production. This includes the cost of all inputs, labour costs, transport, biosecurity measures, as well as all the extra measures related to mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis and improving biodiversity.
Exhaustion was another challenge that Flor mentioned: working long hours, 9am – 9pm on most days and even most of Sundays when there are still animals that have to be fed and other tasks that can’t wait.
Flor has multiple roles as a family member, as a farmer and entrepreneur, as a member of a co-operative, and as a community activist supporting brigadistas
from the local health clinic on health surveys and vaccination days.
Flor’s hopes and plans for the future–
As with UK farmers, Flor and other SOPPEXCCA members are constantly looking into ways of diversifying to overcome dependence on a particular crop or other sources of income. SOPPEXCCA has an ecotourism programme enabling visitors to stay in homes of SOPPEXCCA members. Flor would like to convert a room in the family’s house to create a space so that her famiily could be part of this programme.
Encouraging the involvement of the next generation is important and is a key SOPPEXCCA objective. Flor very optimistic about her eight-year-old granddaughter who is interested in everything related to the farm and constantly follows Flor around.
According to Fatima Ismael, general manager SOPPEXCCA, ‘Fairtrade is both the bridge and the vehicle that helps to transform the wellbeing of the families of small-scale producers. There cannot be climate justice without justice in the market for our products.’