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Monday, March 21, 2011

developing better coffee & helping in Hondurans?

I was very vocal about organic fertilizer, so that the organization would also process and sell fertilizer directly to buyers in San Pedro. Instead of assisting me or pushing my idea, they went off to have a very private meeting, which led to a very ingenious idea. The rich guys got together and used their transport benefit, cars, to obtain a waste product, coffee pulp, produced from their coffee and that of their poorer associates, so that they could use my ideas to profit.

Instead of using the group to benefit everyone, as the foundation is set up, they recognized that the coop was inefficient, the poor had little interest in investing, and there was money to be made. Thus, the marginalized me, in case I wanted to keep the poor on board, and diversified their product line. Should I be upset that they used my information to better their families & wealth, or upset that the poor did not get on board and do it with mules or something?

I look at this as a simple experiment of society and why the poor are poorer and the rich richer. It is not that they are smarter, faster or better business men, albeit some would say so, it is rather that they have the means, capital, the ability to add, waste to $ means more $, and an interest in how others obtained more with the same thing they had. Basically, they make do with their lot better than the poor, who either refuse to emulate others, or fear change, or just do not see the benefit. The major part for me is that they lack cars, which is a big issue in poverty. The rich drive to the poor farmer and buy their produce at 1/5 the cost to resell the product at market for 4 times the price. Thus, many NGOs are trying to donate mules to help poorer farmers get their produce to market.

This policy is largely how the western powers used the colonies in history and how the poor are continually treated. Still, business wise it is daily life. The open veins of the Americas is littered with examples of transport/infrastructure lacking countries essentially surviving off others investments that improved the few ingenious business people able to use their slight capital advantage to make that much bigger by simply recognizing needs and capitalizing on them.
Is capitalism bad or what makes a human consider this wrong, despite it being basically a better allocation of capital?

More recently I learned about coffee from the experts of the world. I have the benefit of knowing the producers, and easily communicating with the buyers & roasters. There one of the best Soren from Denmark told me about the essential nature of flavor and the washing process. Naturally, the grapes or cherries need to be picked ripe, which means between 16-18% sugar and by washed within 3 hours of being picked. There are many processes for the actual fermentation and soaking period, which varies from Kenyan 16 hours to only a couple of hours.

Basically, the buyers have a science of doing this process, while the farmers with better knowledge can match the demand, while most merely produce the product without much knowledge of the process for quality. Fortunately for Honduras, IHCAFE is very prevalent, which provides technically knowledgeable experts and professional cuppers. Thus, the knowledge and capability is much better organized than in the other central American countries, minus Costa Rica, perhaps. Basically, Honduran coffee is the tits of central American coffee or a region that is merging its norms with the demands of quality coffee producers in North America. These positive improvements are part of my work, so that I can instill the right methods as the status quo here, while allowing them to develop their own coffee techniques to differentiate their flavors from other regions and farms.

While I am helping them understand the methods, I am also learning how to do the changes I push. This is something quite important in development, which many large organizations will never do, that being, understanding the process through and through, so that you will actually be technically capable in implementing it. The large organizations have experts, yet policy is made by politicians.

My question is that how can someone manage a project without knowledge of the technical parts? Why do suddenly political issues develop & how can one marginalize the politicians from these important processes that are really not their business, nor their livelihood?

What flavors do you like, chocolate, creamy, fruity, accents of flowers, nutty, orange, raspberry, strong, spicy, sweet, honey suckle or just a normal cup of joe, which does not cost more than $4 a cup?

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