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Participating Organizations and Geographic Location
In Mexico, 79 interviews and meetings have been conducted in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz, and in Mexico City. Pronatura México, Certimex, UCIRI, IXSUR, Comercio Justo México, IDESMAC, Majumut, CEPCO, the Consejo Mexicano del Café, the CNOC are among the organizations that participated in the project. Interviews have also been conducted with private plantation owners. For reasons of confidentiality, most names are kept anonymous.
In Canada and the US, special collaboration with Équiterre saw the creation of the web site and with Jason Potts from the International Development Research Center (IDRC) based in Ottawa for the research to be conducted in the business sector. A letter with an anonymous questionnaire was sent to 39 American and Canadian importers and roasters well distributed across the two countries. Of the 39, 18 responded. Six interviews have also been done. Not all respondents were involved in the sustainable-coffee sector.
Until the project was redirected, Sasha Courville, from the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy (USA), Patrick Mallet, from Falls Brook Centre (Canada), and Rosa Maria Vidal, from Pronatura Chiapas, were involved as consultants in the design of the plan.
Background
Over the years, the intensification of coffee production and trade has contributed to widespread deforestation, destruction of wildlife habitats, soil erosion and agrochemical contamination. Low wages and poor working conditions, as well as low purchasing prices have been causing social damage to plantation workers and small growers in coffee areas. These concerns have given rise to a range of initiatives promoting "sustainable coffee" as tools for change. Despite the increasing popularity of such initiatives, however, many factors are still limiting the penetration of fair-trade, organic and shadegrown coffee into the broader marketplace.
General Description
The initial objective of the project was to establish a North American structure of cooperation among stakeholders to address the challenges facing the penetration of sustainable coffee in the conventional coffee market. The resulting structure was supposed to bring together previously independent movements around the promotion of fair trade, shade-grown, organic coffee. Once the multi-stakeholder participatory research started in Mexico, the project coordinator had to redirect the project. The sustainable-coffee movement, although open to collaboration in theory, was too fragmented to succeed in establishing a North American structure of cooperation. The development of national strategies seemed more appropriate. This is why the Consejo Civil para la Cafecultura Sustentable en México was created to unite existing networks and organizations such as coffee producer cooperatives, fair-trade, organic, shade-grown certification agencies, NGOs and research institutes, as well as governmental institutions, around the objective of further developing sustainable coffee in Mexico. In Canada and the US, stakeholders did not feel the need to invest energy in collaboration specifically with Mexico. Meanwhile, at the producer level in Mexico, the message was clear: "We need to develop the sustainable-coffee market." The coffee crisis was dramatically affecting their communities. In response to that call for action, the project was re-focused towards promoting sustainable coffee in North America.
Outcome and Follow-up
This project has contributed to the development of sustainable coffee in North America. It has enhanced collaboration among stakeholders. It has provided input to the creation of the Consejo Civil para la Cafecultura Sustentable en México, a clearly Mexican initiative. It also brought together the Montréal-based organization Équiterre and IXSUR, a Mexican civil-society organization working with small-scale coffee farmers in the Sierra Norte in Chiapas who are now helping in the development and diversification of a small-scale coffee producers' cooperative. Various outreach activities have been undertaken to foster the development of sustainable coffee in North America:
- The web site www.cafeunidos.org has been launched to facilitate access and exchanges of information on the subject, most of it available in English, French and Spanish.
- Over 2,000 copies of the book Coffee with Pleasure: Just Java and World Trade have been published and distributed across North America (Waridel, Laure. Black Rose Books 2001).
- The book Un café por la causa has been translated from French and adapted for Mexico (Laure Waridel, Madre Tierra, 2001)
- In her thesis Sustainable Trade: The Case of Coffee in North America (University of Victoria), the project coordinator highlights the key challenges of sustainable coffee from production to marketing. She also makes recommendations for a framework of action in North America that includes policy recommendations. The thesis is available on the project web pages: <www.cafeunidos.org>.
- Over 70 conferences have been presented, mostly in Canada.
- In terms of media outreach, over 30 articles have been published, as well as over 40 radio and television interviews by Laure Waridel. In terms of follow-up activities, funding is currently being sought for maintaining the web page and other outreach activities. For more information, Laure Waridel can be contacted at lwaridel@equiterre.qc.ca, (514) 273-0047.
Successes
A multi-stakeholder participatory research project involving producers, coffee businesses, researchers, certification agencies, governmental and nongovernmental organizations from Canada, Mexico and the USA was conducted. Although the project did not succeed in reaching a consensus on the establishment of a new structure of cooperation around sustainable coffee in North America, the overall process did foster the exchange of information and enhanced collaboration among stakeholders. It also helped to increase knowledge and understanding of the challenges of fair trade, shade-grown, organic coffee through outreach activities. This project has contributed to the growth of the sustainable coffee movement.
Challenges
The project has faced various challenges, the most important being the world coffee crisis. Mexican coffee organizations have been busy finding immediate remedies and have therefore had little time or resources to invest in strategic planning for the future. Developing a structure of collaboration among North American stakeholders to bring sustainable coffee beyond the niche market was not a priority for them compared to increasing sales of sustainable coffee right away. This is why the plan of actions for this project was redirected.
Although most participants in the project expressed the need for greater cooperation to take sustainable coffee beyond its niche market, their main challenge was to feel able to afford the time and energy necessary to achieve this, given the scarcity of resources and the numerous day-to-day short-term difficulties. It has also been noted that, although during official interviews and meetings everyone expressed the need to work collectively, informal discussions revealed major personality differences and political discord among stakeholders, not to mention outright competition. It seems that people and organizations will only collaborate if they perceive direct and concrete short-term benefits resulting from the energy they invest in the process. The movement is clearly fragmented.
Another challenge was the fact that the project coordinator, Laure Waridel, is a young female from Québec attached to a Canadian university rather than from a large, well-known and wealthy organization. The coffee community is fairly conservative and male-dominated, and serious effort was required to gain the confidence of some stakeholders.
Lessons Learned
The idea of developing a structure of collaboration was too ambitious in the context of the world coffee crisis. More resources would have been needed to motivate stakeholders to become seriously involved in the process and foment the synergy essential for success. There are also many divisions in the sustainable-coffee community, especially in the US.
What is Next?
Collaboration among North American stakeholders is likely to increase, although probably not toward the creation of a formal trilateral organization. The web site created by this project will help to spread information on the subject and hopefully contribute to the development of new partnerships among producers, roasters, NGOs and governmental organizations in the three countries. The knowledge acquired during this project will be spread via the web page or by mail for those not having access to Internet. We hope that the recommendations made will contribute to strategic planning for stakeholders.
Outreach activities (public addresses, publications, media interviews) will still be carried out by the project coordinator, who is involved with Équiterre. Globally, the movement is likely to grow and thrive.
Eco-Research Chair of Environmental Law and Policy, University of Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
For more information about this grant, please contact the CEC Secretariat.
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Canada 
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