Photo Journal ~ Fair Trade Farmers of Northern Peru
I fancy myself to be a not-too-shabby amateur photographer, and since I'm a relative new-comer to DK, I thought I'd share a little piece of myself here today. (Cue voice-over singing "getting to know you, getting to know all about you...") These are some of my favorite shots, but I also thought they were somewhat apropos to current events -- all shots were taken in the high Andes of Northern Peru. Since COP 20 just finished up in Lima, and since Dec. 11 was "International Mountain Day" with the theme of "Mountain Farming," I thought it would be interesting to see some of the real-world mountain farmers who have been most affected by climate change.
The photo here and those below the fold are all of fair trade registered, organically certified coffee farmers. In case you're not exactly sure what "fair trade" means, the formal designation via the
FLO is designed specifically to help the poor. The people in these shots are all living at a level of poverty you and I can't even imagine. And because the area of Northern Peru where they live is arid by nature, for all I know these farmers have had to leave their homes to find work (if they can) elsewhere since I took these photos several years ago now.
The photos were taken during a regional "Organic Coffee Festival." I've cut and pasted a few paragraphs from an article I wrote a while back, to provide a bit of commentary. I hope you enjoy the photos, and I hope you will keep in mind the people who really need our help when it comes to adaptation and mitigation of climate change.
The road from Chiclayo up into the coffee growing areas high in the Andes of Northern Peru crosses through a strange metamorphosis of the landscape. Chiclayo, the largest regional city center, is hot and dry, surrounded by miles of nothing but desert that seems pocked and desolate as the moon. Desert gives way to mesquite and dry brush and then vast, irrigated fields of corn, sugar, cotton, and rice that carpet the land as you near the river and climb the foothills toward the northern flank of the Andes Corridor. The bleak, barren peaks stand in stark contrast to the lush green floodplains of the Marañon River as it winds its way through mountain passes to eventually feed the Amazon.
As the road continues to climb, it becomes lonely and rough, connecting a few remote villages scattered across the face of the ridges at elevations where the coffee grows, between 1,200 and 1,700 meters above sea level and up. Beyond that, as the foothills reach higher into the Andes Corridor, tundra grasses and lichens fade into rock, where it’s too high for trees and other plants to grow in the shadows of the mountain peaks.
Even without taking climate change into account, the coffee zones in this area are some of the most isolated, marginalized, and challenging lands on which to make a living as a farmer.
Coffee growers around the globe face similar conditions. The mountain terrain where arabica coffee thrives is, in general, difficult to access. Roads, if any, are often primitive, prone to erosion and landslides. Deforestation, from slash-and-burn, logging, conversion to pasture and other uses, chips away each year at what's left of woodlots and wild forests. Basic utilities like electricity and plumbing may not be available. Doctors and health care clinics are few and far between, and may be financially out-of-reach for remote, rural people who depend on subsistence farming and a modest income from a few hectares of coffee.
Nationally in Peru, the average annual income is around $8,000 for men and $5,000 for women. You read that right; that’s annual income. For most small farmers, yearly income may be far less. The villagers high in these mountains just can't afford to let coffee -- their primary source of income -- fail them.
But for some farmers in Northern Peru, growing arabica coffee by mimicking its original, natural forest habitat is helping them weather the storm of climate change impacts.
"Conventional coffee plantations are very intensive monocultures of high plant density with no forest cover. They're more vulnerable to climate change, wear out the soil, and are more susceptible to pests and plant diseases," says Daniel Rodriguez, director of programs for the Latin American office of
Practical Action in Lima, Peru. "Alternatively, agroforestry systems imitate the characteristics of a diverse, natural forest, which makes them more sustainable and resilient. Agroforestry is the most important climate change adaptation strategy that Practical Action promotes among coffee growers, cooperatives, and local governments in the regions where we work. The best quality coffee in Peru is coming from agroforestry systems; that is to say, it's 'shade grown' coffee. It's our best bet for the future of the coffee industry. "