A Visit to Finca El Roble

CREDIT: Vincenzo D'Alto/The Gazette Workers on Finca El Roble sort ripe coffee cherries from unripe green ones.

CREDIT: Vincenzo D'Alto/The Gazette No car, bus or truck could travel on the muddy mountainside path to Finca El Roble, Crecencio Pao Espinoza's remote coffee farm.

What really struck me when we arrived at our first coffee farm was the isolation.
Crecencio Pao Espinoza’s fair trade coffee farm – which also grows cocoa, plantains, papaya, mangoes, corn and other crops – is on a steep mountainside. To get there, first we drove two hours east from Matagalpa, the nearest city centre, up steep, curvy roads to the farming community of Aguas Amarillas. Then, led by two of Pao Espinoza’s sons, we hiked another hour up the mountain along a muddy path that was often so narrow we had to walk in single file.
Definitely no car, bus, or truck would be able to make the trip; Pao Espinoza does it on horseback.
The farmhouse has no electricity, running water, or telephone. Once there, it was clear we were there to stay, at least for the next few days. I felt completely cut off from the world outside of the eight-hectare farm.
But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Pao Espinoza and his large family welcomed us warmly when we arrived at his farmhouse, a wooden structure with dirt floors surrounded by banana trees, a flower garden, prowling dogs, cats, and chickens, and, of course,  coffee plants.
His wife prepared us a hot meal of eggs, cheese, rice and beans, tortilla and fried plantains. The coffee she served was picked, prepared and roasted on the farm.
Pao Espinoza belongs to the Augusto Cesar Sandino cooperative, a group of small-scale producers who farm fair trade, organic and conventional coffee. When the cooperative was founded in 1989, it had 23 members. Today, it has 84.
Their product is sold through CECOCAFEN, an umbrella organization supporting small farmer groups that sells fair trade coffee to buyers around the world – including our very own Cafe Rico on Rachel St.
Pao Espinoza, who is a founding member of the Augusto Cesar Sandino cooperative, told us about the challenges faced by small farmers like himself as they struggled to export their product in the days before the cooperative was formed.
Large-scale producers “would say we couldn’t accomplish anything – only they could. They would ask what we were thinking, growing 1 manzana (approximately 0.7 hectares) of coffee,” he recalled.
“But between 20 producers, we had 20 manzanas and would produce 20 manzanas of coffee. One producer is only one, and we are 20. Their beliefs are just the beliefs of one person – ours are the beliefs of 20 people,” he said, adding: “United and organized, we could do anything we wanted.”
The small cooperative to which Pao Espinoza belongs is one of 11 in northern Nicaragua supported by CECOCAFEN. Founded in 1997 to promote and sell fair trade coffee, CECOCAFEN helps its farmers through initiatives ranging from youth scholarships, to technical assistance, to low-income loans. Such programs have had a positive impact on the farmers of Aguas Amarillas, Pao Espinoza said.