Welcome to our first blog entry. We look forward to the discussions that this avenue of communication will hopefully bring and we eagerly await your, our customers and fellow coffee passionistas, insight, stories and questions. Thank you for reading.
I thought I would start off our blog with a few questions that were posed to me several months ago about working conditions for coffee farmers. As coffee roasters we get asked questions like these fairly often, you can read more about our commitment and social responsibility on another page of our website when you click here, but I thought it would be insightful to hear how one of our farmers answered these questions directly. Diego Llach-Hill, owner of the San Diego farm in El Salvador, supplies us with our Wild Forrest Bourbon that we feature as a Pick of the Harvest every year. Jules, our CEO, wrote a travelogue about his visit there last year (click here to read about the trip and see pictures).
Here are the questions that I asked Diego:
How much do your farmers make per pound of beans?
How much do you make per pound of beans when selling whole bean?
Are your beans fair trade?
How does fair trade benefit partners economically and socially?
Could you describe your relationships with your farmers?
Do you give any benefits to your farmers?
Could you describe the work environment of your farmers?
Do they get breaks, for how long?
How many hours do they work?
What age range works on the farm?
Compared to American workers, in general, how well do you think coffee
farmers are treated?
Below is the unedited email that I received from him.
Hello Kelly,
I have tried to answer your questions as short as possible due to time constraints; however, I would have wanted to write long answers to certain questions. Before we begin let me tell you that we hold 5 certifications. This means we hold up to 5 different sets of values of best coffee practices. Our certifications are:
o Rainforest Alliance
o Organic
o Shade Grown
o Café Practices (Starbucks certification)
o 100% Bourbon Certified
All of these target social and environmental best practices.
Trust me; handling all five at once is an incredible amount of paper work, time, and investment. However, the values one learns and the culture that is built, at every level of the company, makes it worth it.
Let me stress, that these certification have not only helped us in creating a cleaner more responsible culture, but also a more educated on the dangers of agrochemicals and their use. We manage organic and none organic farms. Those who are not organic are managed with great care in the use of agrochemicals, in order to protect our environment and our workers.
How much do your farmers make per pound of beans?
This is a difficult question, as they are not paid based on production, and productions vary a lot on farms. But I will try to give you an average. Approximately, 50% of our costs are spent on salaries at the agricultural level. Remember that coffee goes through many selections and processes before it reaches the final customer. We are talking right now purely at the agricultural level. In dollars that would be approximately $0.50 per pound of green bean.
This figure is the sum of all agricultural work done, growing and picking. Let me add that our company pays their workers from 40% to 100% more that the minimum wage and that our social programs are far superior to the traditional coffee grower.
How much do you make per pound of beans when selling whole bean?
With luck $0.10 per pound. Although in that coffee crisis we had some years at $-0.40 per pound. A loss we were only able to live with by acquiring long term debt and liquidations of assets. However, with the current prices hovering around $1.20 per pound we believe the industry could survive. As long as they create long term relationships with their buyers and work with sustainable prices.
Are your beans fair trade?
No
How does fair trade benefit partners economically and socially?
I am not familiar with the fair trade certification.
Could you describe your relationships with your farmers?
As a company we always have a good relationship with our workers. However, it is hard to become personal as the labor force is very variable. This is not due to that our workers are farmers who in the beginning of the rain season leave us to plant their own crops and in the picking season are always eager to find the farms that have the most production at ripeness, once the have picked it they look for the next farm. This allows them to maximize their salary as in this case the make more money as the pick more coffee.
We might have around 40 fixed workers and that number could climb in the picking season to 1,500 if the crop is good.
Our fixed workers have from 10 to 30 years of working with us. Our long term goal is to grow in fixed workers to approximately 250, as that is what we need to manage the day to day farming activities.
Do you give any benefits to your farmers?
Yes we do. However, this can not be compared to the U.S. benefits as we do not have the government backing in practically any of our benefits. But let me give you a few.
o The only benefit that is government backed is school education. We make sure schools are close to every farm and when they are not we have donated the land to the ministry of education who has built schools in our properties and who they know manage.
o We provide yearly educational programs to our workers on varies topics, such as:
o The importance of biodiversity and ecosystems
o First aid
o Forest Fire controls
o Alternative medicine made from native plants
o Waste management
o Organic alternatives as agro products
o Pesticide management
o Etc.
Generally, we give 4 to 5 seminars on biodiversity, forest management, a cleaner culture, adequate use of agrochemicals, producing alternative organic agro products and then we let them choose two seminars of their interest in order to open up the learning experience.
o We provide a monthly visit by a pediatrician to check up of the workers children. We also invite the neighboring farms so that the children always have an adequate check up. This is free, we cover the medical and treatment costs.
o We work with 6 different clinics in various cities in order to give medical care to our workers. These clinics are open to them free of charge. We pay for their check up and medicine. Some of these clinics provide dental care and laboratory work.
o There is always the yearly bonus, and extra salary, that is given to fixed workers. However, this year we are giving one to those workers who have worked for us for 8 moths in a row. We do this to allow them to go and plant their crops, and pick where they are going to go and pick coffee freely in the picking season. This allows us to capture the good workers in the farming season and let them choose freely where to go in the picking season.
o We have more but I will stop her.
Could you describe the work environment of your farmers?
We have generally happy workers. They are free to come and leave as they please, although, we have incentives for those who stay. Every year we invest in infrastructural investments so that the workers can have a better work environment. We have evening movies playing for them on a big screen, from the lord of the ring to dye hard. They choose the movie from 50 that we keep. To my surprise, action is what they like the most. They have a fascination with Jackie Chan.
We have various showers that we have built in secluded areas with water that comes from natural springs. Washing areas so that they may clean their clothes. Dormitories so those who live far from home. Transport for those who live far from home.
We provide all three meals free of cost for them and their families.
It is not hard to grow in the ranks in our farms as we are always looking for good workers to take higher positions.
Workers have free communications with the central office on any doubt they may have or any problem that they need fixed. There is free communication in the entire chain.
They have the right to create unions if they please. However, their has not been a need as we are fast at complying with worker needs. Our biggest competition for workers is the cities. Faster and faster the younger workers do not want to farm any more and are more interested in the faster city life.
Do they get breaks, for how long?
Our work ours are from 8 to 12 and from 1 to 4. Unless they are applying agrochemicals, the time the work depends on the product we are using. We follow certification guidelines on this.
How many hours do they work?
They work from 6 to 8 hours depending on the work.
What age range works on the farm?
We contract workers who are 18 and older. However, in special cases we also let workers who 17 years old if they bring a written letter from their parents or legal guardian.
In our country it is hard not go give work to young adults who need the income to help their families, especially those who have already families of their own.
Compared to American workers, in general, how well do you think coffee
farmers are treated?
I do not know Kelly that is a tough one. In terms of treatment we are tying to give them the best life we can with what we receive from our buyers and our government. And in our case our buyers help us more that they think. The bonus prices that they give us, based on loyalty, quality, certification, etc, allows us to invest more in infrastructural projects to further better the workers living standards as well as to pay them more.
In the case of our government, it has been getting better, much better, but there is still a very long way to go to compare ourselves in terms of living standards to the U.S.
You can not compare El Salvador or any other country in Latin America to the U.S. in terms of infrastructure and social programs.
By the way, if there is any recommendation on how to better our practices always let us know. We are in constant search on projects, ideas, or managements that would help are living conditions of our farmers.
