Coffee with a Conscience: Chris and Jody Treter Fight for a Fair Deal for the Indian Coffee Growers of Chiapas

Oct. 16, 2002

“Never believe that a few caring people can‘t change the world. For, indeed, that‘s all who ever have.“
-- Margaret Mead

Surrounded by upset Indian coffee farmers in the volcanic mountains of Chiapas in southern Mexico, Chris Treter found himself the focus of a meeting which turned out the whole village of more than 100 souls. “One after another, the people of the village got up and pounded their fingers in their hands at me,“ he recalls. “They said, ‘we‘re dying here.‘ We need you to sell our coffee or we‘re not going to make it.“
For Chris, 27, and his wife Jodi, 26, a nine-month stay in the war-zone forests and mountains of Chiapas was a lesson in the crushing impact that global economic policies can have on peasant farmers who face the upheaval of a way of life that dates back centuries.
Just getting to the village of Mut Vitz (which means “Bird Mountain“ in the Mayan Tzotzil language) was daunting: the Treters took a two-hour bus trip up mountain roads past police checkpoints, a military base, and helmeted soldiers carrying submachine guns to reach the coffee-growing cooperative village.
Like scores of other villages scattered throughout the Mayan highlands in southern Mexico, the people of Mut Viz have been prisoners in their own land since civil war broke out in 1994 between the Indian Zapatistas of Chiapas and the federal government in Mexico City.
That war has been exacerbated by a world-wide “coffee crisis“ which has driven prices down to bare survival levels for peasant farmers around the world. Major coffee companies such as Nescafé and Folger‘s pay coffee farmers as little as .40 cents per pound for beans which retail for $8-$12 a pound in the U.S.
In the $18 billion per year coffee industry, a worker in Central America‘s coffee farms may receive less than $3 per day for his labor -- less than what you pay for a latté at many coffee shops.
“Right now, corporations are making record profits while at the same time these farmers are at times dying, being ruined, or moving off their land to head north because of such devastating prices,“ Treter says.

FAIR TRADE
The Treters are trying to change that situation in their own small way. Since returning from Chiapas in June, they‘ve established their Higher Grounds Trading Co. in Leelanau County, which buys coffee from the Mut Vitz and Maya Vinik co-ops in Chiapas at a “Fair Trade“ guaranteed minimum of $1.41 per pound. Their Higher Grounds brand is currently sold at Oryana Food Coop in Traverse City and at the Cedar Market, Hanson‘s and Deering‘s in Leelanau County. They have outlets in Grand Rapids and Toledo, and also hope to have the Higher Grounds brand in the new Grain Train in Petoskey. Higher Grounds sells for $9.50 per pound, which compares favorably with Starbuck‘s Fair Trade-certified coffee at $11.45.
Treter says coffee farmers must make $1 per pound just to break even on expenses, yet the world market is being flooded with dirt-cheap coffee from Vietnam and Brazil which drives down what is paid to small, indigenous growers. Then too, in 1989, International Coffee Agreement protocols broke down, ending price controls and limits on exports around the world. The result was a disaster for poor growers.
“Right now we‘re in the worst coffee crisis in 100 years with corporations paying the growers 40 cents a pound,“ Treter says. “But it costs about $1 per pound for the coffee farmers to keep going. The plants take five years to mature and the growers don‘t have any money, any alternatives or credit. They really have no choice.“
No choice, that is, unless Americans begin demanding Free Trade coffee which guarantees a living for growers. Considering that Americans drink one-fifth of all the coffee in the world, that‘s a lot of clout.
It‘s a cause American coffee drinkers should get behind, Treter says. “Today, 77 percent of the indigenous children in Chiapas are malnourished and 349 out of the 400 communities where coffee is grown are living in a state of poverty.
“These are people who often don‘t even have shoes,“ he continues. “One thing that always strikes me there is that the people are very, very nice. If you go there, they‘ll kill a chicken for your dinner, but the family itself will eat beans and tortillas. On special occasions, they may eat an orange. They don‘t have anything; they don‘t have plumbing, and this is one of the richest coffee-growing regions in the world.“

SPREADING THE WORD
The Treters are trying to get the Fair Trade coffee message out, based on their interest in human rights.
Their odyssey began with a graduate course in Organization Management for Social Change at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, NY. “We went down to Chiapas after having turned our school into a place that operates on Fair Trade principles,“ Treter says.
The Treters were eager to apply their Fair Trade principles in Chiapas both because it‘s a large coffee-growing region and because it‘s the site of a low-grade civil war which has been embroiled in human rights issues over the last decade.
Indian farmers in Chiapas revolted on Jan. 1, 1994, the same day that NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) went into effect, spelling the potential doom of their way of life. The Zapatista rebels feared that they‘d be cleared from their lands to make room for huge factory farms and plantations where they‘d become little more than slaves to foreign corporations and corrupt government officials in Mexico City.

BRUTAL OCCUPATION
Throughout the mid to late ‘90s, Chiapas was the scene of a brutal occupation by Mexican federal troops and their death squad “Red Mask“ paramilitary helpers from the local population. An estimated 500 persons have been killed by paramilitary gangs alone. Some 256 military bases were established in Chiapas and soldiers began a campaign of daily harassment. “Villages were displaced by paramilitary troops in the ‘90s; they‘d shoot up an area and demand that villagers pay a tax every month or give up their oldest son to the troops,“ Treter says.
On Dec. 22, 1997, paramilitary thugs attacked 45 people in a chapel in the village of Acteal and murdered them all over a five-hour bloodbath. Of those killed, 15 were children, including a babe in arms. “Five pregnant women had their babies cut out of them,“ Treter says. “It was very gruesome. There was a military base less than 500 feet away, but no one came to help.“
Today, the Zapatista movement is crushed but defiant, with members opposing the Mexican government with a strategy of passive resistance. Another group, “The Bees,“ has been active seeking rights for indigenous people through nonviolent means since 1992.
Treter says the coffee cooperatives he works with were born out of that movement. “They‘re attempting to maintain their own autonomy and communities by not taking the government‘s money,“ he notes. “They don‘t like the government policies leading to globalization, which they feel will do away with their culture and lead to having to work in the maquadillas (factories) and large farms.“

A BETTER LIFE
The Treter‘s business model at Higher Grounds is based on their commitment to human rights. “Out goal is not to make a profit; it‘s to support these community growers. We‘re working on getting them not only an income, but also a better life for themselves.“
Treter adds that the Fair Trade movement in such commodities as coffee and chocolate also encourages co-ops to be democratically run to avoid corruption. “The idea is to ensure that the money is used the best way to make a better life for these people.“
He says that coffee-lovers in the Fair Trade movement are looking for five things from suppliers: 1. coffee should be Fair Trade certified to insure that indigenous growers can make a living; 2. coffee should be certified as organic, or in the process of being certified; 3. coffee should be grown under a canopy of shade trees to provide habitat for bird species and prevent soil erosion; 4. coffee co-ops should be democratically run; and 5. coffee buyers should work for the rights of indigenous people.
That may seem a tall order, but considering that coffee is second only to oil as the world‘s most traded commodity and provides a living for 25 million people worldwide, the Treters feel it‘s a cause worth pursuing.
“Our long term goal is to return to Chiapas every winter and work with the co-ops there to help them market their coffee and get certified,“ Treter says.

Chris and Jody Treter are leading a week-long trip to Chiapas in February for those interested in learning more about coffee-growing in the region. For more information, call 231-256-9687, or see their website at www.javaforjustice.com.



Fair Trade coffee movement growing in region

If you see the “Fair Trade“ sticker appearing on coffee dispensors at restaurants around Northern Michigan, it may be due to the influence of the Great Northern Roasting Company.
Owned by Jack and Sarah Davis of Traverse City, the company offers a Malinal Mexican brand that‘s being offered both as a consumer product and at socially-conscious restaurants. “It‘s an organic, Fair Trade and shade-grown coffee made from all top-shelf beans,“ Jack says.
Davis says the word is getting out on the importance of Fair Trade coffee to support small growers in the Third World, but there are still hurdles to be crossed in terms of verifying that certification is legitimate.
“For the most part, the best coffee is grown by the poorest people, but once you have a third or fourth party step in during the distribution process, you get problems,“ he notes. “Even though it‘s a really good cause, it‘s almost impossible to prove that you‘re really getting Fair Trade coffee. The only way you know for sure is to take someone by the hand and take them to Mexico or Guatemala and see for yourself.“
Then too, growers may be offering organic coffee, but not following organic processing protocols for the beans. And the Americas.org website notes that while most small farmers in Central America are growing organic coffee, only 15% are organic-certified. It can cost as much as $1,800 for a poor village like Mut Vitz to pay for inspections and other costs.
Nonetheless, growing interest in the Fair Trade and organic coffee movement is spurring greater scrutiny in the industry and reforms which could help growers.