Finca El Valle

I finally got up the guts to call. Sometimes, even when you have what you need, it is hard to find the conviction to contact new people, to put yourself out there, to make things happen.
But, I did it. I called Cristina Gonzalez, owner of a medium sized coffee plantation just outside of Antigua, Guatemala, and producer for one of my contacts in the states. She runs the farm, which originally belonged to her great grandmother, with her husband and three sons. It is in a very renowned place for coffee production, as Guatemalan coffee is among the world’s best, and Antiguan coffee the top of the Guatemalan hierarchy.
I called and asked for Cristina, explained who I was, and she immediately agreed to come and pick me up! I was picked up by her son Luis, taken to their lovely home which is directly across the street from their beneficio humedo, or processing plant. I was ushered in and introduced to the whole family, shown the one room office from which they do all their business, and told the history of the farm, the issues that they are facing this season (a lack of workers mostly), and the story of their current relationship with Sustainable Harvest, the company that I have a connection to in the states.
Though Cristina is not a small scale producer, or part of a cooperative, she is involved in an ongoing relationship with a company that seems to do business not only with Fair Trade producers, but with a Fair Trade mindset, referred to by them as a relationship model. What was so heartening about this visit, was really seeing how that works. The way that Cristina talked about her relationship with David, the manager and founder of Sustainable Harvest, the photos that she showed me of their visit to Portland, where the office is based, and also to the offices of their roasters, and to the Whole Foods stores where their coffee is for sale, show a deep connection, respect, and admiration between the people involved. One can see that there exists a lasting exchange, on economic, personal, and emotional levels. Here is a family that works together, all of them, in different aspects of a life that has been theirs historically, and they are able to make it work. They are not desperately poor, nor hugely wealthy, but live very comfortably. They are happy building their lives in a nurturing way, providing a commodity and service to a market that wants it, but as more than just an economic bargain.
This meeting has also been very important for me and my own understanding of what I am doing. While I am focusing on small-scale producers, I have to challenge and remind myself that people who are prospering outside of that model are not bad people. There are various ways to make a living, to earn it, and that they do not all have to be doing so in the same way. The Fair Trade model is largely about fostering socially responsible business practices, about creating connections between individual people for the betterment of the entire system, about developing nurturing relationships. I count myself lucky to be able to witness and become part of those relationships, which are beautiful and unique and connecting all kinds of people, be they involved in cooperatives or not.