Parallels seen between tobacco farmers, coffee growers

XICO, Mexico, May 10, 2008 (The Wilson Daily Times - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- Planted in practically every available spot under the canopies of larger banana trees, coffee plants cover the hills surrounding the Ursulo Galvan Colony here.

For years, coffee growers in this small mountain town have focused their attention on producing a good crop and securing the best possible price at market for their hand-harvested coffee beans.

But in an effort to save their small farms and defend the way of life they've known, growers here have formed a cooperative and focused on processing and marketing their own coffee. But the growers' efforts are hindered by a lack of money and basic technology. The growers are also hampered by the fact young people migrate to the United States and walk away from the coffee farms their families have worked for generations.

State Rep. Joe Tolson of Pinetops, who was part of a group from Wilson that traveled to Mexico, said he sees similarities between the struggles of North Carolina farmers and the farmers in Mexico. Tolson said the growers are trying to improve their product and improve their marketing and are looking for any help they can get because they desire to make their community better.

The farmers have to get a fair market value for their crops, Tolson said. The result is farmers form cooperatives. Tolson compared the coffee cooperative to cotton cooperatives here.

Since forming the Consejo Regional del Cafe de Coatepec, the growers have received government funding for the construction of a coffee processing plant and for the purchase of processing equipment -- a hopper and a dryer. The plant was a small, crude cinderblock structure.

But the growers need money to hire a lawyer to research and record the deeds for the land they bought in order to build the processing plant. They also need help figuring out a way to pump water from the stream running through the village to the processing plant. Water is used to strip the shell from the coffee bean.

The farmers have installed plastic plumbing pipe to move water to the bank of the stream. But they need a generator or some other means of pumping water to the plant. The tasks sound simple. But when you consider factors such as the volatility of coffee prices and the cost of coffee production, it's easier to see why some things are out of the growers' economic reach.

The growers said it costs about $120, or 1,200 pesos, to produce 100 pounds of coffee. Coffee prices at market could be $165 per 100 pounds one year and $85 per 100 pounds the next year. On average, it takes $15 to $20 a day, or 150 to 200 pesos, to maintain a family in their village. There are about 20 coffee growers in the village.

The farmers are proud of what they've been able to accomplish thus far.

"We are a humble people, economically poor, but happy and content with everything that surrounds us," one farmer said. "The purpose of this is to better our production. Right? And the consequence is the change in our lives, which we notice a little. And then, of course, to keep working, keep inviting people. We are actually inviting more friends to join us, to grow."

Since returning from Mexico, Tolson said he's asked representatives from the N.C. Department of Agriculture's Goodness Grows in North Carolina program to contact the coffee growers. Tolson said he hopes there has been some contact between the two groups, but he wasn't sure.

Coffee growers whom the travel team from North Carolina met were all older men. The younger men have migrated to more urban areas within Mexico and to the United States in search of better jobs and higher wages.

"It's that there's no work," one grower said of their town. "There's no economy to work. There are no jobs."

The growers said the younger people get accustomed to a different way of life and don't want to return to coffee.

"The youth go to other cities," one coffee grower said. "Because here, the fields aren't profitable for them."

Some of the coffee growers are diversifying and trying to earn money beyond coffee. One farmer described how he makes and sells bread to supplement his income. He also rents out wooden forms for cement work for construction.

Willie Lucas, chairman of the Wilson Chamber of Commerce's Multicultural Business Council, said the coffee growers are hard-working families trying to make a better living for themselves with limited resources. They reminded Lucas of tobacco farmers when he was growing up. He likened the village to parts of eastern North Carolina 30-plus years ago. Lucas said the farmers were all united in their efforts and pulled together.

Wilson Police Capt. Craig Smith had the opportunity while in Mexico to meet the owners of a coffee factory in the town of Xalapa. Smith said the factory owners were selling assorted flavors of coffee to customers in Mexico and Central America .

"They were just breaking into the United States," Smith said. "They had a contract with a distributor out of Texas."

Smith said he asked the factory owners why they were not working with coffee growers, like those in the Ursulo Galvan Colony, to process and market what the farmers were growing. The factory owners replied that they don't do business with local growers because the local growers can't guarantee the supply of coffee the company needs. Instead, Smith said, the company relies on companies in the United States to find coffee producers able to meet their production demands.

"I told them (factory owners) I don't understand," Smith said. "I just got done talking with growers and here you are, you have a factory right down the road. It seems like together everyone could be prosperous."

creech@wilsontimes.com -- 265-7822

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2007 National Statistics for Foreign-born Workers in the United States:

--15.7 percent of the U.S. civilian work force age 16 and over -- 24 million people -- was foreign-born, up from 15.3 percent in 2006.

Out of those 24 million foreign born workers:

--50 percent were Hispanic

--76.4 percent were between the ages of 25 and 54.

--60.3 percent were men

--4.3 percent were unemployed

FOREIGN-BORN WORKERS were primarily employed in the following areas:

--Service occupations -- 22.8 percent

--Natural resources, construction and maintenance occupations -- 16.4 percent

--Production, transportation and material moving occupations -- 16.2 percent

--One in four men were employed in natural resources, construction and maintenance

--One in three women were employed in service occupations

--Median weekly earnings for wage and salaried workers -- $554 compared to $722 for native-born workers*

(Foreign-born workers are defined by the U.S. Department of Labor as "persons who reside in the United States but who were born outside the country or one of its outlying areas to parents who were not U.S. citizens. The foreign born include legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents and undocumented immigrants.")

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Mexico Survey

THE WILSON LATINO INITIATIVE distributed surveys among local Hispanic residents during April. A total of 139 responses were returned. Jobs and the ability to work were among the top issues people listed as important for not only their immediate family but also for Wilson's Hispanic community at large. Listed below are few of the work related responses.

Concerns related to the welfare of their families and the Hispanic community in Wilson:

--Lack of employment

--Low wages

--Lack of a Social Security number

--Desire to be financially stable

--Not enough money for food

--The ability to find jobs easily

--Permission to work

--Ways of finding better jobs

--Indifference in not valuing their labor

What needs to be done to address employment concerns:

--Create some type of identification that would allow them to legally work

--Improve salaries

--Create work permits

--Stop immigration raids

--Assist people with securing Social Security numbers

--For the Mexican government to do its job and create jobs

--Give jobs to immigrants

--Authorities manage to see them as hard-working people

--Unite, organize and ask for help.

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