Lachivista – A Fair Trade Bike Ride

It’s been a few days now since my visit to UCIRI and here’s a few reflections on my visit with a few more photos.

I was hugely relieved to get there as the whole idea of the ‘Fair Trade’ bike ride seemed to be so far away at times. I’d met some great people involved in Fair Trade in California but southern Mexico was where I felt the main part of the trip would start. However, I’ve learned and seen a lot along the way.

Meeting Fransisco, the founder of UCIRI is quite an honour. I didn’t know about him beforehand, but to meet the person who played a very large role in establishing Max Havelaar in the late 1980s and more recently helped found CLAC (Coordination of Caribbean and Latin American Small Producers).

Rosendo, the coffee farmer I spent time with, is one of many indigenous inhabitants of the area. UCIRI co-op is predominantly made up of families who are Zapatista or ‘mixtes’. Indigenous populations of southern Mexico (and beyond) have suffered at the hands of colonialists since the 16th century and notably in modern times the ‘zapatistas’ rose up in protest in 1994 over the creation of NAFTA. Since then there has been continued discrimination and poverty amongst these populations. UCIRI helps their communities to at least have a dignified way of life; a difference between extreme poverty and basic living needs being met.

In my few days with UCIRI I was using colectivo taxis or riding in other people’s cars. Nobody wears seat belts and mostly they don’t even work. It’s ironic and I would say a lot less safe than being on my bike!

UCIRI shows how business can be done fairly. They have established themselves in the domestic market and internationally, so being able to control the whole supply process within Mexico gives them the best opportunity to make the most of the raw material. Often, even for other Fair Trade commodities, the processing, packaging etc. of these takes place in the Western world and potential income sources are deprived of these local producers. However, in some small cases this is changing. Modern trade rules play a large part in preventing small producers from being able to take on these opportunities.

Village life in Chayotepec was a new insight for me and gave me a sense of how life typically is for billions of people in the world. Most of us in the developed world have little idea of how privileged we are. How easily we forget the ease in which we live our daily lives while consuming products or resources that come from these people. In itself this is not a problem; what’s needed is a life of dignity and respect for these producers, their families and their communities.

The visit has lifted my spirits as I move on to new areas and to hopefully visit more Fairtrade producers. Next up is San Cristobal (I arrived here yesterday) where I hope to visit a couple of other coffee producers, Maya Vinic and Majomut.

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The next morning I got a better look at my accommodation for the night and the rest of the UCIRI facility. On one side of an open courtyard there were several rooms where some of the staff lived. On the other there is the roasting and packing area. I got a brief tour of the area then and a better look when I came back down from the mountains.

It was another morning of “letting things go” with some waiting around for the trip up to the village of Lachivista and the central warehouse. The tentative plan (and I am still unclear as to how loosely the locals go by the clock…) was to head up there around 10am from the office, so I settled in with a coffee and had more of a look around with some attempts at chatting to a couple of the staff. By 11.30am it looked like we were off, but then that became 12pm. Eventually at 1pm we were ready to go. Again, another lesson for me to let things go and just trust that everything is fine. It probably didn’t help that I was still a little unclear as to what the day would bring, but at the same time it was good for me as the whole thing was such a new experience.

An hour later we arrived. Lachivista is not very high up (probably less than 300m) but the road there was winding and had numerous potholes, rocks and in one section had been washed out completely, shutting it for two weeks. The facility is quite the place – a central office, warehouse (bodega) for bean packing/storage, a small health and dental centre, credit union, cafeteria, meeting area, accommodation rooms for staff, fruit processing area (for maracuya and tamarind), greenhouse with coffee plants, a basketball court…and probably more.

The farmers are scattered in many locations and this is where they bring their green coffee.The harvest is typically from December to February so the warehouse looked almost empty, though there was still plenty of coffee in there. The greenhouse is where they cultivate different varities of coffee in their early stages so the farmers can purchase the plants and take them to their own farms.

The way UCIRI has developed over the years means the producers have many more opportunities for diversification and access to credit if needed. Coffee prices are volatile but with UCIRI they at least know that they are able to live a life of dignity and respect.

The meeting with the organic inspectors perhaps went on longer than anticipated, so by the time it was all done and everyone had eaten it was getting late (well for me it was – around 5pm) and I was told I’d be going up to the ‘eco-tourist’ village in the mountains. Trusting that all was in hand, I got a lift with one of the UCIRI staff to the next village to then switch to a local taxi (collectivo) that would take me up to the village of Chayotepec.

The collectivos are everywhere in Mexico and mostly they are glorified pick-up trucks, with bench seating and a cover for transporting people and any local goods. Now was my chance to get a ride in one. The excitement soon gave way to more unease as the road out of town started as a dirt track…exactly where was I going??!? Slowly grinding uphill various people would hop on or hop off and I wondered where they lived. This seemed to be the middle of nowhere…and the road got steeper, more rutted…surely there can’t be a village at the end of this road, can there?

An hour later, at dusk I arrived. I was told by Fransisco that someone in the village would help me out when I arrived. I could do nothing but trust that all would be fine. I tried explaining to a couple of guys there that I knew nothing about the village, what I was going to do there, or where I was staying. Even though a gringo doesn’t show up very often there they took things in hand and I was soon shown to my cabana in the dark. A newly-built simple room, it looked welcoming right then. A couple of locals then brought me some coffee and biscuits and I was left to reflect with a sigh of relief and wonder on the day’s events.