Update: Nicaraguan Farmers Finish Show, Start Tour
Our friends from Nicaragua finished their first SCAA experience Monday, and Tuesday began a five-day speaking tour in the L.A. metro area.
Yesterday afternoon after the exhibition closed, they reflected on the experience. “I never imagined I would come to something like this,” said CECOSEMAC’s marketing coordinator Immer Montoya. President Adrian Arauz, pictured here on the first day of the exhibit, called it “an incredible experience.”
Tired from long days attending workshops, meeting with potential buyers, walking the exhibit floor and exchanging experiences with farmers from other cooperatives, Immer and Adrian felt simultaneously humbled and encouraged. “We saw how small we are in this industry,” said Immer. It’s true. CECOSEMAC consists of less than 250 farmers from a few communities in Nicaragua. That represents one-one-thousandth of one percent of the world’s coffee farmers! And the SCAA convention is only partly about the farmers who grow our coffee. It also brings together all the other industries producing everything else that is part of our coffee culture: roasters, grinders, brewers, espresso makers, packaging equipment, coffee bags, labels, signs, shelves, branded debit cards, sandwiches, gelato, cookies…you get the picture. Against this backdrop, and on their first visit to the United States, it is no wonder Immer and Adrian felt a bit disoriented.
But there was encouragement in Long Beach, as well, for their future as a cooperative and the potential of Fair Trade as a tangible expression of solidarity. “We see what other cooperatives are doing. Now we know that if we work hard on the quality of our coffee and farm organically, we can advance,” said Adrian. He and Immer are also excited to meet with Fair Trade advocates in the LA area. A few CRS Fair Trade supporters – Mick Smith, a CRS champion from Marin County, and Margaret Johnson, a CRS volunteer in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles – made the trip to Long Beach to visit with the CECOSEMAC members, who were impressed by their passion and expressions of support. “You knew they were speaking from the heart,” Immer said. “They want to help us make a better life for us and our families and our community.”
