A difficult case to solve

Politicians show little interest in the crisis in Central America, but 350 private organizations suggest a solution than can make Nicaragua less dependent on the global coffee market, in exchange for increased food independency.

By Christian Korsgaard, informationworker, MS Central America

22. August 2001

With only 75 days left to the presidential elections, one should think that the coffee crisis in the Northern Nicaraguan provinces could gather political attention. That is not the case. President Alemán has during the last month shown the path to follow, in not acknowledging the hunger, which has forced thousands of workers and small farmers to move into temporary camps along the main roads.

Surprisingly, the candidates for the November 4^th elections have also ignored the problem – until now. An optimistic guess on why the crisis has drawn so little interest could be that there are few votes in the issue. A pessimistic guess could be that the problem is so fundamental and hard to solve that it is better not to mess with it during campaign.

Lots of proposals
But there are many proposals. Civil society organizations, municipalities and unions have all presented suggestions, both for solving the current crisis and for solving the more structural problems. However, all the proposals have the minor ‘disadvantage’ that they require a larger amount of money that the country does not possess.

Right now the need for food and seeds is definitely the most important. The government has tried to solve the problem by letting the coffee workers clean streets in exchange for food, but the initiative has been criticized, because it does not motivate the workers to return to the fields and start working there. Another problem is that food is only part of the solution:

"I don’t want to work for food. My children also need shoes and we all need medicine", says José Avilio Molina, a father of five children aged 1–5.

The seeds are now arriving. The Ministry of Agriculture has started distributing beans and fertilizers to some 40.000 families, in order to avoid that the year’s second harvest will also be lost. The internal support from individuals and businesses has been surprisingly low. While Nicaragua during the earthquakes in El Salvador earlier this year was able to mobilize a larger solidarity, there has been little of that this time.

Far too little
But fortunately there are also some suggestions with a longer perspective, of which some clearly aims at saving the coffee production. The government has offered a support of 50 dollars for each manzana (a little more than half a hectare) and the farmers have unwillingly accepted. They believe that the amount is way too low, and that it does in no way transfer sufficient funds to the coffee growing industry – a transfer urgently needed to restart production. Apart from that, the payment of the 50 dollars seem to be bureaucratic, complicated and managed by the banks, where small farmers have little chances of being taken into consideration.

In coordination with the municipality of Matagalpa, the farmers have in stead asked for a support of 10 dollars per sack of coffee (100 pounds), a considerably higher amount, and they also suggest that the funds be handled through the municipalities and unions. Using sworn testimonies, the farmers suggest that small producers, who cannot prove their production, should also be covered by the programme. Finally, and that seems completely elementary, the farmers find it necessary to temporarily stop any legal procedures that banks are planning against farmers in order to save at least a minor part of their investments.

A structural problem
Other suggestions are more fundamental and see the coffee crisis as a result of structural problems. They suggest that as long as Nicaragua and the coffee growing provinces base the economy on a crop that traditionally suffer from big variations in prices – upon which Nicaragua has no influence – the problems will come back. Accordingly there is a need to ‘resaddle’, to change the production pattern.

It is not a major revolution. In the area around Matagalpa the people talk of a small change where, alongside the coffee production, the farmers can lean upon other export crops like for instance chili. In that way farmers can get an income the same years as they plant, not after caring for the plants for four years as it is the case with coffee.

But the change require good financing in order to convince the farmers to try new crops. The widespread economic vulnerability in the area reduce the desire to try new opportunities.

What is more important is however that Nicaragua first of all is able to feed itself, and not deliver products for the European or North American markets. That is at least the opinion of some 350 local organizations, who in an open letter to the political establishment have made a very concrete proposal.

Food!
Economist Orlando Núñez from the organization CIPRES is the godfather of the proposal. He admits that the entire idea of modern globalization is against the idea, but he still believes in it:

"The developed part of the world says that we have to consume the cheapest goods. If Europe produces cheap milk then we all have to drink European milk. That is a huge mistake. We need to strive for independence in terms of food."

"The developed part of the world says that we have to consume the cheapest goods. If Europe produces cheap milk then we all have to drink European milk. That is a huge mistake. We need to strive for independence in terms of food. Until we can feed ourselves, we cannot stand upon our own legs. But it seems as if we see it as something shameful to produce food in Nicaragua. I don’t understand why. Even the USA and Europe export food, and the basis of their wealth was independence in terms of food", says Núñez.

The suggestions of the organizations is that the State uses half of the amount which international donor organizations yearly give to the Rural Development Institute, to change the production pattern among smaller farmers. The amount is around 50 million dollars and with that the organizations guarantee that 25.000 families will be able to produce enough food to cover the national needs – and even export.

"We now it will work, because we have already tried out the idea in real life with 5000 families. We give them a cow, two pigs, chicken and a rooster, seeds, a silo, irrigation equipment and materials to make a henhouse and pigsty. All is handed over to the woman as a loan. In our culture the woman is the symbol of reproduction, while the man is the symbol of commerce and profit. The loan is returned to a fund, in money or goods, and the fund then lend the money to other farmers. In that way it continues", explains Núñez, who without a flicker of doubt believes that hunger can be eliminated in Nicaragua in just five years.

"Give me the six million dollars that USA has offered in food. You will see how we can double that amount ten times in no time"

"After six months, not after 500 years, the children will be eating eggs, chicken, pork, milk, fruit and vegetables. In just half a year, we can be eating the same as they eat in the USA or France. Give me the six million dollars that USA has offered in food. You will see how we can double that amount ten times in no time", he claims, completely sure that the idea works.

Finally political interest
And his enthusiasm is apparently contagious, because Daniel Ortega, the presidential candidate for the left wing Sandinista Party, has now contacted the organizations and asked them to do something serious about the suggestion.

"It places us in a dilemma, because on the one side we want the politicians to take interest in the suggestion, but on the other we have to take care not to become too involved with a party during election times. The conclusion is that if we want people to take our suggestions seriously in the future, we had to accept an offer to work for the idea as part of Ortega’s campaign. But it is still our hope that other candidates and parties include the proposal in their programs", explains Mario Quintana from Coordinadora Civil (www.ccer-nic.org), a conglomerate of some 300 organizations and cosigner on the proposal.

And while people on the offices in the capital Managua discuss what to do, the crisis continues in the Northern provinces. Today’s paper warn about a loss of 60 percent of the next coffee harvest, if workers do not return to the fields soon to take care of the plants. There is however no expectations that they do so until they have a guarantee that the government will in fact take care of their problems.