An important update from SIPRO
Below is a transcript from the the association of producers called SIPRO, in Chiapas, Mexico.
There is not much to say other than that this powerful declaration shows the incredible hardship and dedication that is endured by those our work supports. Smallholders like these are under-resourced, and under-rewarded. We seek to support these producers in the best way we know, with all of our profits returning to those that we represent.
Please read and share. Particularly those of you reading who have bought from SIPRO in the past. Thank you for your support.
This is a message on behalf of the SIPRO Café Sierra Coffee Producing Company.
We are located here in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, in our country, Mexico. We are all coffee producers, and paysanal people since birth, with the beautiful activity of growing coffee as heritage from our ancestors.
Our children also enjoy this beautiful industry, alongside our parents and grandparents before them, who have achieved several advances across generations; whether in studies or other achievements to do with their own coffee production.
The Environment
Unfortunately today, growing coffee is currently one of the most difficult businesses to be involved in, due to several external factors. For 5 years now, climate issues have affected us, mainly in the flowering stage of coffee development, when the plant needs a lot of humidity. Today in the area where we live and grow coffee, it does not rain as it should. Therefore, although the coffee blossoms look very pretty, when they enter the binding stage as we call it here, the plant cannot continue with the flower to fruit development phase. The coffee trees have had all the nutrients needed, but the flowers wilt due to lack of rainwater.
This has impacted us mainly in both production, and logically in the support of the sale of coffee to support our families. It is worth mentioning that in this most recent cycle (2023-2024), production in the entire region decreased by 50%. It was too much. We have to work hard against this.
Our plantations are managed under shade, lots of shade, and many different varieties of shade trees. Even though we experience this in our community we believe that this is a global issue. What happens in other countries, in other places, in other states, also impacts us, although we try to preserve the nature around us.
Here, we take care of wild animals, and birds. In the past, seasonal workers from Guatemala would bring their slingshots and kill the animals. Nowadays, this no longer happens. In our area today we now see toucans, and many other birds that we had never seen before. We have also begun to see quails and mammals, such as deer and armadillos to mention a few. We now have the presence of these blessed little animals that, in one way or another, are part of our life, and our activity here in the countryside.
Soil and Inputs
We have also introduced organic products with the intention of improving our soil, to reduce the impact on the environment as much as possible. We have tried to preserve our soil, which we clear using a machete, and only by hand with no machinery. In fact, many of these methods are being reinstated that we have been at risk of losing for generations.
These are some of the effects and benefits that we have had, that we have achieved as producers in the region and also in our society. We as a group decided to improve all the negative aspects that have been brought about, and that have impacted on our production. Some of these inputs help us produce, but have become too expensive, unfortunately, due to factors external to us. This has also had an economic impact, since the little income we have had has gone towards purchasing these products in the past.
The Issue of Labour
For some time now, some 4 or 5 years, we have had real difficulties around finding labour during the season. This is a topic that has hit us too hard in relation to the coffee cut or the pinch, as some places call it. We need 100% labour on the land, and in the past this labour has come from our brothers and friends in Guatemala. In the past they have come to us, to pick and cut the coffee here, but now, they are no longer coming. We have seen this change gradually, across a few generations.
Those men who continue to come, they tell us that their children no longer want to work in this way. Many emigrate to the United States because, as they mention, it is a little better there, with the improved conditions for them generated by being there. So the young people from Guatemala, well, they don't come anymore.
Also, what has massively affected us is the exchange rate from quetzal to peso. In Guatemala, they use the quetzal, the national currency there, and here in Mexico we have our peso. Before it was three to one, and it meant that for one peso that they earned here in Mexico, when they went to their country there they were given 3 quetzales. Not now, now it's the other way around. Now for every peso they earn here, they get 45 cents of a quetzal back home,
You need to earn twice as much here for it to be the same as it was. This has impacted us too much, and directly affected the production of coffee. Already during these years, for some neighbours and even for almost the entire region, coffee, the cherry fruit, has remained on the coffee plant. Unharvested.
Meaning, that the investment that was made in previous months of growing the coffee, can no longer be collected. Coffee continues to ripen, and if you don't cut it, when the rain comes the fruit begins to fall. Or, it simply stays on the plant, which brings another problem, which is the coffee borer beetle.
Coffee berry borer beetle. Credit: L. Shyamal - National Geographic
The Borer Beetle
The borer beetle is very, very harmful to coffee. They become an infestation if the coffee cherry, their food, becomes a host for them by not being removed from the plant or land. And that's what it does. When the fruit is starting to mature, the insects get in and do a lot of damage. There have been years when it has affected our harvests by up to 30% due to the damage they have caused.
The view towards Guatemala
Safety and Security
So far, we have discussed the natural, social, and economic issues that have affected us.
But, this year the issue of safety and security has also affected us very strongly.
Issues of safety here in Mexico has meant that friends from Guatemala did not come here to work this season, because of the fear they have of moving across the border from Guatemala to Mexico. This issue of insecurity is due to the presence of drug trafficking groups that fight in the area. Currently, it is very dangerous and we cannot leave our town because all areas are covered by them.This has hit us too hard.
Typically, the price of coffee in the region has been between 40 pesos and 46 pesos per kilo of coffee. However, along the coastal area here in our State of Chiapas, it was up to 56 pesos per kilo. The difference between 10 to 15 pesos per kilo is huge. The drug traffickers, the criminal groups, they charged those who bought the coffee and that came to hit us all, all of us, all of us.
This situation made all the basic things that we consume here at home more expensive; because all the products we need to buy have to pass through the checkpoints these groups put in place. The trucks, the buyers, the stores, they have to pass their products through these points. They risked a lot in the first year, and in the second year they were charged too much. By bringing products to us as a vendor, you are forced to pay too much. Some products went up by 200% or 300%.
With the little that was obtained from selling our coffee, it practically left us in ruin. It does not allow us to advance or to live as we want to live. Not with luxury, but as comfortable as possible for our families, our children.
Furthermore, apart from that, in our case as SIPRO, the last harvest we made was more or less at the end of March 2024, depending on the area. There are some high areas of 1600 to 1800 MASL, and other low areas of as low as 1100MASL. We as a group don’t have any members growing coffee lower than this.
Our idea was to gather the coffee and send it all so that it arrived in a single trip, due to the fact that production was also reduced. But they didn't let the coffee through at the checkpoints. Many people kept their coffee in storage because it was too scary to take out the coffee and try to transport it. The fear is that they would take it away with the entire truck and you would lose everything.
We have this fear because we put time, money, love, and hope into our coffee; to achieve a few more pesos and with that be able to support our families well. But this situation meant that we couldn't get any of it out to sell.
They detained us, and they told us that we couldn't get it out. If we tried to take it through, they would take it away from us. In order for us to be able to get the coffee out, we had to go talk to the leaders of the drug traffickers. They told us yes, come to the checkpoint, but we are going to charge you.
We went to these crossings as 2 groups, and each group was charged 500 pesos. In the first transportation of our harvest, they charged us 2000 pesos per truck. We sent 2 tortons, that's what we call them here, and we were forced to pay 4,000 pesos. But we had to pass 3 checkpoints.
At the second checkpoint they charged us 31,000 pesos for the 2 trucks, and then we passed the other checkpoint, from which they charged us again 31,000 pesos. In total, we paid approximately 66,000 pesos in just trying to transport our coffee.
Who We Are
SIPRO is a society of small producers. We do not have a warehouse, and so we have to pay for the trip from our houses, to the place where we are going to load the coffee. The problem is the fear we have of transporting it. But we have to do it, and with it also the transfer from here from our area to the city of Oaxaca, in the State of Oaxaca, where the mill is located called UNTAO.
The truth is necessary to mention. It is all a risk, because the area has already become very unsafe. This made us spend more, and well, that has brought us, and is going to bring us logically, less income which leads to less development.
But we are here and we are going to continue giving it as much as God allows, as much as nature allows us, as much as the social issues allows us, as much as all those things allow us. We continue to give as much as we can and well, blessed God allows us to stay alive and be, and continue cultivating this beautiful crop.
For all those who like our coffee, for all those who love coffee, the topic of coffee, thank you from the bottom of my heart. On behalf of all our partners, on behalf of all the producers here in Chiapas, the mountainous area and the world. We continue fighting the battle and we will continue fighting it, thank you very much.
