Entry 7 - Starbucks agronomists visit & Nancy sings

El Marquez de Tarrazú, 17 August 2007, 4:00 pm

Last night’s dinner was really fun at La Vaca Flaca.  The restaurant was set up like a log cabin with a stuffed cow out front.  As we walked into the restaurant, Rhinestone Cowboy was jamming from the radio.  We knew it was going to be a good time.  Of course, that might depend on how you define “good time.”

It was the first time that everyone really started to seem to let loose and have fun.  We teased each other and laughed so much.  Natalia was cracking us up with her stories of making mistakes while learning English.  My favorite story was about an advanced class she was taking in Canada.  The assignment was to make a presentation to the entire class, and she stayed up very late worrying about the presentation.  With bloodshot eyes, she went in front of the class to make her presentation, and she told us that she told her class, “I was up very late last night, that’s why my ass is red.”  We all cracked up.  Oh, and obviously she meant her EYES were red.  (She said one of her classmates said, “What were YOU doing all night?”)

This morning, we joined for our usual morning breakfast.  The two wonderful women who make our breakfast for us everyday brought us fresh avocados today.  Since avocados are one of my favorite foods, I was so excited.  They were every bit as delicious as I thought they would be.  This type of avocado is soft enough that you can open them up and spread the avocado on your toast with a butter knife … Donna and I loved that.

We woke up and headed to the farm of Leo Fallas.  Leo talked about how Starbucks insisted he plant some trees along the riverbed on his property.  He didn’t understand why that was so valuable when he first planted the trees, but he said he’s now noticed that the soil on his riverbank has stopped eroding, and birds and butterflies he hasn’t seen in many years are now returning to his property.  He was a kind and serious man who smiled a lot (except when he was getting his picture taken).

We got started working hard in the field.  I was happy because today was my first day analyzing shade trees.  Since this is not an organic farm, there were fewer shade trees to analyze.  But there were still plenty.  I also got to see the first plantain trees I’ve ever seen (and I LOVE plantains).  So Nancy, Gabriel, Donna, Melanie, and I recorded the sunlight versus shade measurements.  We also identified the condition of the trees, as well as their diameter.  Afterward we broke into small groups and measured an estimate of the density of the trees in the forest.  My final project was working with Gabriel to use the GPS machine to record the exact coordinates of each of the coffee trees that had been analyzed today by the other groups.  This is an important part of the process for figuring out how all the trees, plants, and other activity is interdependent and how everything affects each other.

Donna is from Irvine, California, and is a 7th-grade math teacher.  She is really sweet and seems shy at first, but she has a wicked sense of humor.  She cracks me up.  She is really close to her family, and is crazy about her niece and nephew.  She loves her students, whom she refers to as her children.  I was really impressed that she followed her dream of becoming a teacher, despite pressure to become an MBA.  After a few years of doing what she was “supposed to do,” she went back to school to get her teaching certificate.  10 years later, she says she’s loved every minute of being a teacher.

Nancy is our Starbucks representative on this trip.  She is so passionate about coffee and about supporting coffee farmers.  Her passion is infectious.  She also has an absolutely terrific sense of humor—a very quick wit with just enough “naughtiness” to keep me crying laughing.    She lives in Seattle and has two dogs.  She is going through a really tough time right now but you would never know it.  She’s a tough lady.  She also sings with a women’s chorus in Seattle and is so proud of that.  I feel really lucky to have met so many great people on this trip.  Nancy is someone I hope I stay friends with.

At noon, Don Jose brought us the food from Doña Merce.  We had another delicious lunch at the top of a mountain, picnic-style, outside.  Afterward, several of us walked up as far as we could to enjoy the view and take pictures.  It’s fun to see how we are all getting along so well, and—while obviously some of us get along better than others—there are no “cliques” forming; everyone takes time to get to know everyone.  When the week first started, Natalia told us we would soon feel like family.  I don’t think any of us expected it to be this true.

In the afternoon, back at the lab, the three men who work at the Starbucks agronomy office came to make a presentation.  Carlos Mario Rodríguez is the director of agronomy and he spoke to us while going through a PowerPoint presentation called “Coffee Grows on Trees.”

He told us that Starbucks is looking to open two additional field agronomy offices in the other two major coffee growing regions, one in Asia/Pacific and one in Africa.  He also said the company is looking to increase its purchases of Brazilian coffee, but is concerned about coffee quality (there are two primary types of coffee on the world market, Arabica and robusta.  Arabica is the high quality coffee that is purchased by specialty coffee companies like Starbucks.  Robusta is the low-quality coffee found in instant coffees.  Brazil is the largest producer of coffee in the world, and exports both types.)

Starbucks coffee purchases last year broke down like this: 73% from Latin America, 21% from Asia/Pacific, and 6% from Africa.  As far as sustainability, they purchased 18,000,000 pounds of Fair Trade Certified coffee, which is 6% of their total coffee purchases, making them the largest purchaser of FTC coffee in the US.  That’s a lot of coffee, and a lot of us hope they keep increasing that percentage (many activists have been pushing Starbucks to sell at least 5% FTC coffee, and this is the first year they have exceeded that).  Their 2006 coffee included 4% organic (12 million pounds) and 2% conservation/shade grown (2 million).

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned on this trip is a dichotomy.  It’s very important that, as much as possible, those of us who care about sustainability purchase coffee that is Fair Trade Certified, certified organic, and/or shade-grown/bird-friendly.  (There's great information about Fair Trade certification at www.transfairusa.org.   Shade grown coffee is discussed at http://nationalzoo.si.edu/ConservationAndScience/MigratoryBirds/Coffee and www.rainforest-alliance.org.) So why the dichotomy?  Well, I believe we need to increase these types of certified coffee on the market; there’s no question about that.  And I think that there are enough consumers who don’t care about sustainable coffee, so buying more will help to tip that scale.  So keep doing it, and if you don’t currently buy certified products, especially Fair Trade Certified, start doing it, even in a small way (just a few products per month will make a huge difference, if we all did it).  Also, if your favorite store or coffee shop doesn’t sell any Fair Trade Certified products, ask the owner or manager!  I have heard that it only takes three requests before stores will respond to those types of requests.

However, after meeting these farmers, I realize how complicated the issue of certification is.  For example, one farmer I met told us that he is trying to be as close to “organic” as possible (i.e., using as few chemical pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides as he can).  But he told us that to become certified as organic, he would have to pass the organic “test” for three years, without receiving the premium that organic coffee often earns.  After that, he could start selling certified organic coffee, but the yield goes down.  He said that if he worked really hard, perhaps after 10 years, he could get his yield to be what it was before trying to become organic.

Another farmer told me that because where part of his farm is located, he needed to use some fungicides.  Part of his farm is on the side of a mountain that only gets afternoon sunlight.  So it’s very moist all night and all morning.  He said it would be virtually impossible to not use some fungicides on that part of his farm.  For most of these farmers, selling coffee is the only way they are able to support themselves and their families, so a high yield is vital to their livelihood.

Every farmer I met told me that, because their coop does business with Starbucks and the company uses C.A.F.E Practices criteria to monitor their farms, that they have drastically decreased the amount of chemicals they use on their farms.

My final commentary is about Fair Trade Certified.  I’m a huge supporter of FTC products and volunteer with the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition to try to increase awareness about this important certification.  However, FTC only certifies cooperatives of farmers, and not individual family farms.  So if a company has a long-term relationship with a family, buys their product at a high rate, and the farmer uses few chemicals, pays their employees well, etc. (all the stuff FTC requires)—if it’s a single family farm, by definition it can’t be certified as Fair Trade.  A great explanation of this is on the website www.jeremiahspick.com under the “Organic and Sustainable Coffees” tab.

So certifications are very important, and we ought to support them as much as possible.  But it’s equally (maybe even more) crucial that we get to know the companies we buy from, what their philosophies and buying criteria are.  If possible, find out exactly who they buy from, and ask them directly.  The coffee farmers I have met are so hard working and conscientious.  They also have to face the reality of feeding their families.  It’s important, on every level, that we support them in every way possible, and ensure that they are taken care of with our buying choices.

After a couple of hours to ourselves, a dinner was brought into the lab of Coopetarrazú prepared by Doña Merce.  After a nice dinner, Nancy found a guitar and tried to tune it—alas this guitar was untune-able.  She was still able to sing and play beautifully, though.  She sang James Taylor’s You Can Close Your Eyes and the Carole King song You’ve Got a Friend, and we all sang along to the chorus.  It was an unbelievable evening.

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