Mariano Asturias is the third generation of his family to grow coffee, and has already inspired the next one. The proud father of seven children, he counts on their support, along with that of his wife, to keep the knowledge alive.
He recognises the importance of coffee growing in his region, not only as a legacy, but also as a valuable source of income and a path to a brighter future for his family. For Mariano, coffee is more than a tradition - it is his passion, something he has loved since he was a young boy.
By working hard as a day labourer on other people's farms, Mariano saved enough money to start producing his own coffee. Over the years, the family has expanded their farm, El Pino, to three hectares and continues to improve their farming techniques to produce even higher quality coffees.
But the challenges in Honduras are many. The main sales channel in the country is either through intermediaries who drive their dump trucks into the communities to buy cherries, or worse, producers have to make the day-long journey of packing their cherries on mules to the city in the hope of finding a buyer who will offer them a decent price.
While this sales model may have worked in the past - many decades ago, when and input costs were much lower - for the last 15 years at least it has been largely exploitative, never allowing producers an opportunity to earn enough to re-invest in their farms or improve their product, keeping them from any meaningful link with international buyers.
Many growers confirm that the prices they've (and continue to) receive in the conventional model are simply not high enough to generate profits. This is a common refrain heard in Honduras these days, that coffee farming at best can generate enough money to pay the pickers and the input costs but often fails to do even that.
Given this situation, many producers face the difficult decision to sell their land, in part or entirety, to survive. This reality has forced many to migrate to the dangerous major cities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula (the latter of which has held the dubious distinction of murder capital of the world) or to the United States. Indeed, Honduras’ rural farmer class in general has been under siege for decades now, as foreign direct investment from countries like Canada has poured into the country to use these lands for livestock production, sugar cane, bananas, and palm oil production.
Rather than the prevailing model, currently existing in Honduras and perpetuated by Canadian corporations, we share and support Semilla Coffee‘s vision of foreign direct investment in which specialty roasters send their money directly to smallholder producer communities, without intermediaries, for use as they see fit.
