DRIP BREW

Micro-irrigation boosts coffee production in Nicaragua

by Stuart Taylor

The hills around Jinotega vibrate with life. Mobs of raucous birds clamour from brightly flowering trees, rustled by tendrils of mist wisping through the steep green valleys. This idyllic setting is also the heartland of Nicaragua’s premium coffee industry – a growing market that is providing new opportunities for small-plot farmers.

Known as “La Ciudad de las Brumas” or City of Mists, Jinotega nestles in the hills two hours’ drive from the capital Managua. We are here to learn more about how IDE’s expertise in micro-irrigation is helping farmers to maximize the profits they get from their one or two-acre coffee plots. Our guide is Francisco Zamora – IDE’s project manager, on secondment from Exportadora Atlantico – Nicaragua’s largest coffee exporter. Francisco knows a thing or two about coffee and is giving us a crash course in the production, processing and marketing of the commodity that is second only to oil in global trade.

As he drives us up a mountain road past steeply sloping fields of coffee, he quotes the poetry of Rubén Darío – Nicaragua’s most famous literary figure and a local hero. Francisco’s zeal for poetry is matched only by his passion for a good cup of espresso.

We arrive at a small two-acre farm and are greeted by the farmer Mauro Pineda, who is wearing a Mercedes Benz cap. Pineda may not be able to afford the car, but he is happy with the additional income that he is earning from his improved farm operations. His immediate ambitions are more basic: to provide good food for his family, education for his two children and to improve his farm.

Pineda is a member of a local cooperative that is producing coffee for sale into fair trade and premium markets. It is interesting to see how market pressure in North America and Europe is translating into real changes in production practices on this small farm in rural Nicaragua.

In order to sell into fair trade and premium coffee markets, Pineda must be certified based on the three pillars of social, economic and environmental responsibility. As we are talking, coffee pickers are unloading baskets of colourful cherries into sacks. Pineda explains how co-op members have improved the way they mill these cherries to release the coffee bean inside.

Previously, many farmers were hulling coffee cherries in the middle of the river, dumping all the waste directly into the water. The mill that Pineda now shares with other co-op members sits 100m from the river. The waste from the mill is captured and composted, while the water flows through three settling ponds. This is a much cleaner and more efficient system. The river is not polluted by tonnes of coffee effluent and the farmers use the composted hulls to fertilize their coffee plants.

Bean counters: Baskets of premium shade-grown coffee mean higher profits for farmers

Organizations like Technoserve and Rainforest Alliance have been working for years to develop responsible production standards and to help farmers and companies meet those standards. Now companies like Atlantic are providing financing to help farmers make the necessary investments. Certified farmers means certified coffee. Certified coffee means profit for the farmer and the exporter.

Now, IDE is helping to boost certified coffee production by making small-scale drip irrigation available to coffee farmers. Over the past three years, IDE has worked with Atlantic and local farmers to develop and pilot a drip irrigation system that will work on the steep slopes of a hillside coffee farm. We have come to see Pineda’s system, recently installed under the guidance of Sudarshan Suryawanshi – one of IDE’s top micro-irrigation experts. Sudarshan has been in Nicaragua for a month, training local installers to set up these systems. As we carefully pick our way down through the steep rows of coffee plants, holding onto shade trees for balance, Sudarshan laughs: “You should have been here two weeks ago,” he says, “We were working in the rain and everyone was sliding down.”

The steep slopes present an engineering challenge – how to maintain constant pressure through a system on such a severe grade. Sudarshan and IDE board member and irrigation guru Jack Keller have worked tirelessly to develop a system that can handle the pressure gradient but remain true to IDE’s commitment to affordability. This year, over 80 systems have been installed on small coffee farms in Nicaragua. By the end of 2009, IDE expects to have 500 systems up and running. Based on the field trials, each system is conservatively expected to boost production by 30% - a substantial overall increase in the ability of small-plot farmers to supply the booming premium coffee trade.

This project is an exciting collaboration; IDE is providing expertise and its low-cost technology, while companies like Atlantic and Nestlé are investing in the promotion and financing for the systems because they see value coming back to them in the form of high-yielding, high-quality coffee.

“As we drive back into town, Francisco intersperses his descriptions of the Nicaraguan coffee industry with more recitations from Darío: "Si la patria es pequeña, uno grande la sueña." ("If the homeland is small, one dreams it large.")

Small farmers with big dreams. Poetry and possibility in a cup of coffee.