Coffee Farmers on Guatemala’s Lake Atitlán Go Organic

By David Dudenhoefer

LAKE ATITLAN, Guatemala, June 21, 2004 (ENS) - With massive volcanoes towering over aquamarine waters, Lake Atitlán is one of Guatemala’s top tourist attractions, yet the coffee farmers who live around it are struggling to survive. Low market prices for coffee have pushed families into crises from Colombia to Cameroon, but hundreds of Atitlán’s farmers are trying to put the coffee crisis behind them, and they are doing it while improving their relationship with the lake’s threatened natural resources.

One of those farmers is Martin Cutuj, a Kaqchikel Mayan with two plots of coffee on the slopes of Atitlán Volcano. He recently began producing organic coffee, which involves halting pesticide use, enriching the soil with leaves and compost, and preventing soil erosion.

Martin Cutuj picks his organic coffee on the slopes of Atitlan Volcano. (Photo © D. Dudenhoefer)

“When this was forest, there was a lot of vegetation, but people cut it down and burned it. As the people worked the land with their hoes, the soil washed away. But now, since we’ve started planting trees, the soil has improved,” he said.

Cutuj is one of 300 farmers in the Atltilán area whose farms were certified as organic in March of 2004, which means they can sell their coffee for double the market price.

That certification is the result of a project co-financed by the U.S. nongovernmental organization World Neighbors and the Global Environment Facility’s Small Grants Program – implemented by the United Nations Development Program – which trained members of seven farmers’ associations to promote organic agriculture in the Atitlán area. Those organizations represent farmers from three Mayan ethnicities and more than a dozen communities.

One of those seven associations was Cutuj’s group, Asociación Ija’tz, which is based in the lakeside town of San Lucas Tolimán. Asociación Ija’tz president Cristobal Tuiz explained that a study done at that town’s clinic found many local people to be suffering from chronic headaches, stomach and respiratory problems, which he thinks are caused by pesticides.

Esperanza Hernández (left) and Cristobal Tuiz of Asociación Ija’tz hold the organic certificate for dozens of the association’s member farms. (Photo © D. Dudenhoefer)

“In the long term, we are affecting the land and the lake. It isn’t fair to leave our children this kind of inheritance,” said Tuiz.

Tuiz was one of several dozen Ija’tz associates whose farms were certified in March. He explained that in addition to farming, he works as a gardener for the vacation home of a wealthy Guatemalan, and when coffee prices crashed several years ago, he took a second job driving a truck.

“As president of the association, I feel very happy that this achievement took place during my term, and as a farmer, I’m very happy because it means I get a better price for my coffee,” said Tuiz, who added that, “A better price means I can do more for my children.”

Esperanza Hernández, Director of Asociación Ija’tz, said the certification was the result of years of hard work. She explained that the association earns five percent from the sale of its members’ coffee, funds which it is has used to purchase land where an ecological coffee mill will be built. Several other organizations around the lake have already built such coffee mills, which use less water and produce less waste than traditional mills.

“For us, this is an achievement, something for which we’ve fought hard,” Hernández said, holding the organic certificate. “At last we’ve seen our dream come true.”

View of Lake Atitlan and Tolmian Volcano from Santiago Atitlan, one of a dozen indigenous communities switching to organic coffee production. (Photo © D. Dudenhoefer)

Atitlán lies within Guatemala’s most biologically diverse region, with hundreds of bird species, such as the rare azure-rumped tanager and horned guan, but only the tops of its volcanoes retain their forest cover. Shade coffee is the closest thing to forest in many areas around the lake, and studies by Guatemalan biologists have shown that shade coffee farms can hold nearly as much biodiversity as nearby forests.

“Coffee is an artificial forest were there is flora and fauna, where there is food and firewood, and it covers more than half of the volcanoes,” Lec said. “If it is a refuge for birds, if it is a refuge for flora, why not support it?”

According to Oscar Castañeda, who represents World Neighbors in Mesoamerica, his group’s collaboration with the Small Grants Program launched a process that has since attracted support from several other international organizations. He said that APOCS sold one shipping container of organic coffee and six containers of fair-trade coffee from the 2003/04 harvest, and the goal is to sell 15 containers of organic coffee per year by 2006.

Though organic coffee farms currently represent less than two percent of the coffee produced in the Atitlán watershed, Castañeda said hundreds of other farmers are preparing for certification.

“People may say that isn’t much,"he said, "but this initiative will become an example that the rest of the farmers in the area follow."