Drying the Beans

Around the city of San Juan de Rio Coco, where we can find many of the coffee cooperatives, the coffee drying is in full swing. Coffee cooperatives have a long-standing tradition in central America – with varying history, influence and regional strengths – an interesting subject matter would be to compare the differences and similarities between the different central American countries coffee cooperatives – and if lessons from the very developed cooperative system in Costa Rica can serve as a guide the novel cooperatives in Nicaragua. In many cases the cooperatives survival in Nicaragua, rely on one or two stronghold leaders which run the cooperative, and who maintain a strong relationship with the international exporters based in Managua. The relationship remains key – in fact there remains a strong lack of direct relationships between the farmers and the end consumers in the Western world – despite much media attention. In fact this has been dramatized in the RFA advertisement campaign: “Follow the frog”

The region of San Juan de Rio Coco used to be a highly regarded coffee producing area , however due to lower investments in the region , the cafetales have an increasing average age of the trees and a lot of the crops were never replanted and have no rejuvenation programs. Indeed, this is the current focus of the most dynamic local cooperatives – the financing of rejuvenation plans and many people are jumping on this opportunity to get a direct commercial connection with the cooperatives.