Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2005/02/11/founding_contra_caf.php

Founding Contra Café

Friday, February 11, 2005

Contra Café began with a dinner conversation in Matagalpa, Nicaragua in late August 2004. I was with Erwin Mierisch, a 35-year-old Nicaraguan coffee producer and exporter.

Thomas Kilroy

— They fought for freedom. —

While we waited for our food, Mierisch described meeting the leaders of a cooperative of small Nicaraguan coffee growers known by a tongue-twisting name: Unión de Cooperativas Agropecuarias de Servicios Unidas de Mancota, or UCASUMAN. This cooperative was exceptional because all 160 of its members had fought for the Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense—better known as the Contras—against the country's left-wing Sandinista government in the 1980s.

Mierisch recounted how his conversation with the cooperative's leaders had turned from export business to the recent death of President Ronald Reagan. These small farmers and former Contra fighters told Erwin that Nicaragua owes a huge debt to President Reagan. They argued that Nicaragua enjoys democracy and freedom today largely because of Reagan's unyielding support for the Contra fight to overthrow the Sandinista regime. Erwin described how a few of the men had even begun to tear up as they explained what Reagan had done for Nicaragua.

A year earlier, I had visited the farms of some of the UCASUMAN members while volunteering for TechnoServe, an American non-profit that offers business assistance to entrepreneurs in the developing world. The producers I met farmed between one and three acres of coffee and lived in small, dirt-floored homes that lacked running water; they suffered because volume exporters like Brazil and Vietnam had driven down prices.

At the time of my visit in 2002, the UCASUMAN farmers tried to certify their coffee for Fair Trade sales so as to receive a better price. Fair Trade producers receive a guaranteed price of approximately $1.25 per pound for conventional coffee and $1.50 for organic coffee. Such prices represented a huge premium above the fifty-cents-per-pound price that Nicaraguan coffee received on the New York commodity market.

On paper, the UCASUMAN farmers were perfect candidates for Fair Trade. They were small farmers in great economic need producing a gourmet quality coffee. Nonetheless, powerful Nicaraguan coffee cooperatives blocked UCASUMAN from selling at Fair Trade prices. Arguing that because demand for Fair Trade coffee is low, these cooperatives, linked with the Sandinista political party, permitted UCASUMAN to certify their product as Fair Trade, but prevented them from selling at the going rate. UCASUMAN would have to go on a waiting list, a waiting list the farmers knew to be without end.

Sitting that night at dinner in Matagalpa, I listened to Mierisch's story of these farmers' respect for President Reagan and wondered, "How can I help these former freedom fighters make a reasonable living from their coffee?" Thinking about it, I realized that the cooperative did not need Fair Trade to get a good price for their coffee. Millions of conservative Americans would love to buy gourmet coffee made by those who fought alongside President Reagan against communism. It was just a question of marketing the coffee to the right people. Thus was born the idea for Contra Café.

A week later, I went to the northern Nicaraguan city of Jinotega to visit José Adan, the president of the UCASUMAN cooperative. During our meeting in his office— a small space with concrete block walls and a corrugated metal roof—he told me about the members' unsuccessful attempts to sell Fair Trade and about their struggles to provide for their families and maintain their farms. He was excited about the prospect of selling UCASUMAN's coffee via Contra Café for a price that matched or exceeded the Fair Trade premium.

Our conversation shifted from the details of Contra Café to a discussion of the Sandinista revolution and his service with the Contras. I asked him, "Why did you fight for the Contras? Why would small farmers fight against the Sandinistas rather than with them?" He explained to me that he had at first supported the Sandinista revolution and overthrow of the dictator Somoza but was horrified by the Sandinistas once they assumed power. He had hoped for a government similar to Costa Rica's democracy, but the Sandinistas instituted a regime modeled on Castro's Cuba. The Sandinista government dictated where to work, where to sleep and where to shop. Basic necessities like food and toilet paper that had been plentiful were scarce under the Sandinistas – you had to wait in line for everything. When Adan refused to serve in the Sandinista military, the police pursued him and persecuted his family. Unable to return home, he joined the Contra forces in 1984 and served until 1990 when, under great domestic and international pressure, the Sandinistas held a free election and were soundly defeated.

As our conversation ended, Adan expressed his excitement at the prospect of getting a better price for the cooperative's coffee and about selling to end consumers who value the sacrifices of the Contras. I promised him to do my best to bring Contra Café to fruition. Our goal is to establish a company that will allow these former freedom fighters to earn a good living for decades.