Corona is hitting the coffee chain even where we can't see it. We report on the situation in northern Nicaragua and what consequences threaten. In short: it's getting grim.
Actually, our coffee from Finca Santa Rita would now be hulled, sorted by size, and freed of defects. Our team would fill it into bags and drive it in trucks to the port of Corinto on Nicaragua's west coast.
But right now everything looks different: the coffee is still unsorted in the warehouse in Ocotal, unhulled and unpacked. The warehouse is operating at minimal capacity, with coffees being tasted only in the lab. Tim Willems, our farm manager in Nicaragua and founder of BridAzul, the dry mill, told me:
We had to send almost all employees home. I can't yet say whether it was a good decision, but it felt right.
Tim Willems
"Social distancing in coffee is hardly feasible," Tim says. Lifting heavy bags, sorting coffee in groups, filling, all of this is unrealistic without physical contact or maintaining two meters distance. For him, ultimately the health of the employees outweighed everything and he didn't want to offer any work where he would put employees at risk. Many families live in the smallest spaces across multiple generations. The infection risk in rural areas is very high within families.
Furthermore, the health system in Nicaragua is very weak, and Corona is also hitting Nicaragua, even though the government only reports 10 infected and 2 deaths. Those who don't test don't find anything. At the same time, however, cases of pneumonia are rising dramatically, many with fatal outcomes.
In Nicaragua, dark theories are circulating through social media again and everyone is accusing the government of covering things up: pneumonia simply happens, Corona could be prevented. If Corona is the cause of deaths, then it's a self-made problem. If it's pneumonia, then it just happens again and again.
Day laborers can't work from home
The decision by our partners to temporarily send their employees home was difficult. They knew that their employees needed to earn money and that many would look for occasional work. Still, our partners wanted to protect the employees and send them home. A difficult decision. They're now trying to provide support through food.
Wage advances are currently hardly possible because the coffee hasn't been sold yet and the last few months consumed a lot of capital. Emergency parachutes like those currently being distributed quickly and unbureaucratically to companies in Switzerland, Germany, or Austria don't exist everywhere. Not in Nicaragua either. As partners, we are now more challenged than ever.
Corona doesn't just show the differences in how the crisis is handled, but also structural and social inequalities. Day laborers can't continue working from home. The government in Nicaragua is using the vocabulary of class struggle and shouting loudly: "Only the rich stay at home!" It's even said that before Easter week it suggested people recover from this Corona discourse and take vacations at the beach. Similarly, the government invites people to demonstrations for health and against Corona – people march through the streets in masses.
The farm as a retreat
Tim and his team oversee two farms on site, Finca Santa Rita and Finca el Árbol. Most employees would be back in their villages, but a skeleton crew would remain on the farm to keep it running. At the end of the day, a coffee farm is a farm, there's always something to do.
On the finca it was then quiet, you wouldn't notice anything of all the chaos. However, work is falling due right now that can hardly be done on time with a small team alone.
Difficult harvest 2019/20
Last year's harvest, which actually should have been on the ship soon, was difficult. A long dry period in much of Central America shortly after flowering caused the cherries to grow unevenly. The seeds in the cherry, the later coffee beans, developed only poorly or not at all in some cases.
From southern Mexico, through Guatemala, Honduras to Nicaragua and Costa Rica and Panama, yields declined between 10 and 40% due to the drought. That's massive. Various traders have told us that even average qualities from Honduras sold for a price that would normally be paid for a microlot.
Santa Rita status
At Santa Rita, we've seen a loss in exportable coffee of approximately 35% compared to the previous year. The reasons are on the one hand the aforementioned drought, and on the other hand our renovation program.
Since 2017, we've been renovating the farm piece by piece. We're thinning out the plantation and cutting back very old trees first – if they don't grow back more vigorously the following year, we also remove these and thin out the population to approximately 1,100 trees per hectare. Now some of the old trees haven't responded to this treatment and were removed. Because if the input (fertilizer and labor) for a plant is greater than its output, then it has to go.
Next year there will be even less yield at Santa Rita because we've just thinned out the tree population again. In return, we're expecting the first harvest from 1,000 Variedades, which should come in at around 10 bags.
No access to fertilizer and pesticides
Since political unrest began in Nicaragua two years ago, the local currency lost value significantly and imports suddenly became more expensive. Nitrogen, for example, which synthetic fertilizers are based on, became 30 to 40% more expensive.
The majority of fertilizers in northern Nicaragua are imported from Honduras, but now Corona comes into play: the border with Honduras is closed. Anyone who now needs fertilizer or pesticides faces a huge problem. The shortage has caused prices to rise dramatically once more. But if fertilizing doesn't happen now, the next harvest will be smaller again. A vicious cycle.
Those who have focused on organic farming methods are somewhat less affected in this regard, provided the input can be produced on the farm itself. However, this requires a lot of know-how, which exists only in isolated pockets, and exchange with experts, who currently aren't traveling around.
A bit of luck
In January, our team planted Canavalia on a large scale, also known as jackbean. The vine-type plant produces large leaves and spreads like a mesh over the ground. The reasons for planting were:
- Large leaves cover the ground =
- fewer irritations from UV light
- less water loss
- less erosion
- drastically reduced weed growth that could compete with the plants for nutrients
Now, Canavalias are also strong nitrogen-fixers. They store it and gradually release it back into the soil. Especially in times when it's difficult to get nitrogen-based fertilizers, Canavalias and other nitrogen-fixers help in times of need.
What now?
A prognosis for the coffee situation is difficult. Information is fragmented and communication from the government is virtually nonexistent.
But what we do know is the following:
- the coffee export of our coffees is still not foreseeable – we're conservatively calculating the arrival of the coffees in October
- many producers can't invest in the farm because they
- produced less coffee
- and sold less of it
- which will lead to a smaller harvest next year
- the import of fertilizer and pesticides is severely limited
A few months ago, we sharpened our future direction for Finca Santa Rita. We want to produce organic coffee and become largely independent of external inputs. The current situation reinforces our commitment, shows the urgency, and motivates us – even though and because we know that the coming months in Nicaragua will be very difficult.
We'll discuss what Corona means for the coffee chain on Sunday in this webinar: Coffee & Corona. Challenges, Chances, Change.
