Entry 4 - Tour of Cooperatarrazu and Preparation for Fieldwork

San Marcos de Tarrazú, 14 August 2007, 6:00 pm

Last night was my first night sleeping in rural San Marcos de Tarrazú.  Even though the days are very hot and humid, nighttime is cold and damp.  I’ll have to remember to really snuggle up in my blanket tonight.  Also, a rooster lives right outside my window who apparently doesn’t know that he is only supposed to crow at dawn.  He started just after midnight and kept it up most of the night.  Glad I brought earplugs … hope I don’t miss the alarm clock.  So do most of my buddies since I was one of the few who brought an alarm clock!  I became the de facto wake-up call for six of the other participants this morning.  I tried to charge them five bucks each.  Each of them politely declined to pay up.

So after another delicious traditional Costa Rican breakfast at the soda, or diner right in front of the hotel, we loaded up in our taxis for the ride to nearby Coopetarrazú.  This is a Fair Trade Certified democratically elected cooperative of 2,000 local coffee farmers.  We were taken on a private two-hour tour of the mill by Erny, who explained each step of the process, from the time a farmer drops off his coffee cherries for sale to the coop to the time they are bagged up and ready to be sold to a roaster.   

Erny explained to us that the mill provides other services to the farmers, such as a sugar cane-processing area for farmers’ personal use.  In addition, there was a place to process timber harvested from a farm owned by the coop.

What impressed me most about our tour was the efforts that have been made for the farmers to become more environmentally responsible.  For example, the waste water that forms as a result of removing the pulp that surrounds the coffee beans is redirected to the coop’s pastures as an organic irrigation technique.  Also, any large amounts of pulp or other organic solids are composted into organic fertilizer and then sold to local farmers.

In addition, the dry parchment that is a by-product of the process of pre-drying the coffee beans does not go to waste.  They use this dried parchment (which would otherwise be thrown away) to burn the fuel of the machines used for the final drying of the beans.

Coopetarrazú has obviously spent significant time and effort into trying to reduce their environmental impact.  It’s also neat to see how each process is interdependent (like how the compost created from the pulp of the cherries becomes soil to grow new coffee plants—true sustainability in action).

After the tour of the mill was completed, we went back inside where the staff of Coopetarrazú served us some of their coffee, along with pastries and fresh fruit (it was the sweetest, juiciest pineapple I have ever had!) while we were welcomed by the CFO of the coop, Don Carlos Vargas. It was great to hear him say that, in addition to what they have already done, that the coop continues to make environmentally conscious business choices due to increasing customer demand for those practices.

When he finished his presentation, Wendy from the marketing department gave us a presentation on what’s going on currently at the coop.  She told us that the co-owners had diversified their income by opening two coop-owned supermarkets, a gas station, a small roaster so they could sell small batches of their own coffee retail, and two agricultural supply stores.

In addition to the other terrific environmental information we learned earlier, Wendy told us about a project selling some Coopetarrazú coffee called Baulas Blend (www.caffetarrazu.com), where $4 from every pound is donated to an environmental cause.  Also, the coop’s store does not sell any of the “Dirty Dozen” chemicals, those 12 chemicals that have been identified as the most toxic, as part of their efforts to help eradicate their use amongst local farmers.

We learned that the coop is focusing now on social & economic development; environmental protection; compliance with and improvement of labor conditions; and democracy, specifically economic transparency and traceability.

The coop sells 200,000 fanegas of coffee per year (1 fanega = 46 kilos) and 75% of that is purchased by Starbucks.

The remaining 25% is primarily exported to the US and Europe, although there is a move to keep more of this premium coffee in Costa Rica, so the farmers and laborers can enjoy their amazing product.

I asked Wendy about the Fair Trade certification and what the farmers thought about it.  I really wondered if it made a difference in helping to improve their lives.  Wendy said that the consumer demand for Fair Trade Certified coffees had increased the benefits to the farmers, sometimes in ways they didn’t even realize yet.  She said that she told the farmers that Fair Trade standards should be applied on the farms “not just for the market, but it really benefits the farmer.  I ask them to look at the next 30 years, and I tell them if they don’t start following these practices now, at some point they won’t have coffee, or clean water,” she told us.

After the presentation, while Sebastian and Natlaia continued their presentations on our project and gave us much more detail on, Wendy brought us all gifts: polo shirts and safari hats with “Coopetarrazú” on them.  She thanked us for coming and told us how important it was to connect the consumer with the coffee, and that she would share our passion with the farmers.

We enjoyed a brief lunch at a restaurant across the street from the mill.  We enjoyed more comidas tipicas while a video screen played ‘80s American music.  It was a lot of fun to listen to, except each song only played about 30 seconds before moving on to the next one.  We’d just start jamming to "Vogue" or "Bad" before the next ‘80s song came on.  Oh, well.  We’ve been told we’re all expected to do some karaoke at the local bar in San Marcos before it’s all said and done.  Sebastian and Natalia said they can convince anyone to sing.  Not on your life.

The afternoon was spent listening to intense presentations about how we will spend the next several days, and the methodologies for our research.  This is the first year of a three-year project, and we will have the chance to make a huge impact on it.

Specifically, we will be using GPS systems and compasses to create quadrats on each of nine farms and take soil samples, catalog plant and tree diseases, and track pest presence.  The information we collect will be used to test for soil erosion, and for the impacts of using chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides on the plant life.

One of the participants from the last expedition told us on a conference call, “If you starve to death on this trip, it’s your own fault.”  That was an understatement.  We had another delicious dinner served up with perfect Tico hospitality, and off to bed.

Tomorrow, the journey really begins.  Our first day in the field.

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