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After speaking with several buyers operating nearby and conducting our own coffee quality baseline to map out the region (81.5 cup score average), we realized high-end specialty was unlikely to be a solution for these farmers. Los Volcanes got together with CRS and its farmers during the 2018-19 harvest to pilot an alternative business model we thought might work in the region. The network, made up of a representative from each participating SILC group, manages the commercialization fund and ensures accountability and transparency, following the financial and accounting standards of the methodology. Next year, Los Volcanes wants more volume, and the SILC network is asking why they haven’t been commercializing using this model for years.

Manejo de la Biodiversidad (SICOBI), whose model is a blend of territorial management, communal decision-making and income diversification, is one of those innovative solutions. The families that make up SICOBI have implemented a communal land and biodiversity management strategy of which Elinor Ostrom would be proud. Over the past ten years, SICOBI and GAIA have fine-tuned this landscape level framework for rural development, developing livelihood models which have allowed the organization´s 700 families to live sustainably within their territory. This mix of strong community organization, a territorial approach to natural resource management, and income diversification has mitigated the negative impact of coffee prices which are far below the cost of production.

Oaxaca´s production systems are forestry/agroforestry systems with a high degree of biodiversity (over 15 tree species per hectare), organic production, and are low input and low yielding. That said, whereas Oaxaca´s organic, biodiverse systems have uniformly low yields (between about 2-4 export bags[4] of coffee per hectare), Eastern Guatemala´s yield numbers are highly variable, ranging from below 10 bags to upwards of 60 bags, despite relatively uniform costs of production. However, like with the macadamia-coffee study from the previous post, let´s go beyond yields and look at gross profit data from both systems. The Eastern Guatemalan farmers have also been able to improve their systems during the past few years by improving their soil management and applying targeted practices which have resulted in some big jumps in yields and lowered costs.

CRS used the Land Equivalency Ratio tool during the last agricultural cycle to analyze the economics of coffee-based agroforestry systems in San Marcos, Guatemala. Land Equivalency Ratio is a simple tool which allows us to compare the production and/or profit of a monoculture system with a polyculture system. In the case of San Marcos, we used the tool with a sample of farmers to evaluate and compare the relative benefits of a monocrop coffee farm, a monocrop macadamia farm, and a mixed macadamia-coffee system. Some noted that since the rust outbreak of 2013, they had been integrating more macadamia trees onto their farms, and a few other farmers, like Guillermo, noted that they had begun to dedicate certain blocks of their land just to macadamia and shade. I think some of the conclusions here are that what we perceive as the lead crop (they are coffee farmers, right? ), might not always be the most economically important crop for farmers, and that diversified agroforestry systems (these farms also have banana, citrus, and shade/timber/firewood on them) often mitigate (hide? )