Life Beyond Scarcity (To Others, Through Others: Lutheran World Relief's Quarterly Newsletter, May 2007)
By Phillip Otterness
In past decades, Americans came to the La Reyna community seeking gold.Today, they come for a very different reason. Recently, a delegation studying Fair Trade in Nicaragua visited coffee growers in La Reyna and the eco-tourism project they’ve developed with help from Lutheran World Relief. What they found there were hopeful people growing a bright future from land once scarred with injustice.
After a long journey through the highlands of central Nicaragua, our bus drove across a muddy pair of beams spanning a running stream and into the Danilo González Cooperative. We had traveled to meet the coffee growers here and to see how their involvement in the Lutheran World Relief coffee project had affected their lives.
As we stepped off the bus, children ran to greet us, followed by their parents. Julian Antonio López Díaz, the co-op’s president, gave us a warm welcome. “I hope we can feel like family, even though we come from different places,” he said with a smile. Inside a schoolhouse, where 40 children now receive an education thanks in part to community revenues from Fair Trade activities, he recounted the history of his community.
The Danilo González Cooperative is nestled in the mountains just outside the town of La Reyna. Rich in natural beauty and resources, La Reyna was once the territory of indigenous people. Around 1900, the Nicaraguan government sold the land to a North American couple who built a large coffee plantation there.
Soon after, American prospectors came in search of gold and established a large mining operation. For a time, the mines brought jobs and income to La Reyna. But after the foreign owners pocketed their profits and packed their bags, the community was left to deal with lung ailments, a damaged ecosystem, and unemployment. What was once a lush, tropical valley suffered from massive deforestation and water scarcity. Tuberculosis, first spread in the mines, was passed on to children.
And only a handful of workers were hired on the large coffee plantation; most were forced to find temporary jobs in other communities. In 1986, the Nicaraguan government increased taxes on landowners and the plantation was abandoned by its owner. After years of living as landless peasants, the community of La Reyna took this opportunity to come together and acquire legal rights to the land under Nicaragua’s agrarian reforms, resulting in the formation of the Danilo González Cooperative.
Making a living growing coffee is challenging. Downward fluctuations in global commodities prices have bankrupted many small farmers. But in La Reyna, the cooperative has survived by selling 30% of its coffee on the Fair Trade market, which guarantees a consistent living wage, access to credit, and a direct, long-term relationship with buyers. This relationship is sustained in part by Lutherans who purchase coffee through the LWR Coffee Project.
Today, 26 families are part of the cooperative. Together they grow coffee and subsistence crops, and process their coffee in a central “wet mill” to prepare it for sale. Members feel that thanks to the success of their co-op, their future is finally and securely in their own hands. Slowly, the people of La Reyna have brought their community back to life. And life was exactly what we found, in abundance, throughout our visit; around the generously laden dinner-tables laid out by our gracious hosts, in the yard playing games with the children, and among the rows of coffee trees, where we picked bright red “cherries,” each containing two coffee beans.
Over dinner, Pedro López expressed his gratitude for those who support Fair Trade. “We are fortunate. My family eats well, thanks be to God. But it’s not like this for everyone.”
“The cooperative has always been open to help anyone,” said Díaz. In the past, they have provided firewood and assistance with land titling to residents in La Reyna. Now, selling on the Fair Trade market, they receive a yearly social premium to reinvest in the community. So far they have built a school, a medical center, and a housing project in La Reyna.
Now the cooperative is reaching out beyond La Reyna to those interested in learning more about the coffee growing process. Lutheran World Relief has helped them set up an eco-tourism project, which has become a source of extra income, as well as pride, as community members are now able to showcase their remarkable accomplishments to interested visitors from around the world.
Asked about what the future holds for the co-op, Díaz was quick to respond. The next project? “Fixing that bridge!”
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Thanks to Dan Lee and the communications team at LWR for editing and improving this article.
Afterward our hike, I walked down to the lagoon, while Tim went back to meditate. I'm glad I continued on, because I soon ran into 10 or 12 howler monkeys all in a group, making a ruckus. I love monkeys and had never seen them in the wild before. Such mirthful, noisy creatures! After this I went back to the hotel and went for a swim in the lake at sunset. I watched as some horses came and took a drink from the water. One of them took "something else," at which point I waded back to shore and called it a night! We ate at an outdoor dining patio at the next hotel. Ended up running into Lothar again and chatting with him for a while, until a woman came scolding him for locking her out of the bathroom their two rooms shared...for the third time. I closed my evening by laying in a hammock for a while, enjoying the sound of the surf. When I went to bed, I felt like was still swinging in the breeze.
