Drinking Coffee with Atok Coffee Growers

As the windy mountain road takes us higher and higher into the Cordillera of northern Luzon, the air gets thinner, the panoramic vistas more spectacular, and my breakfast increasingly eager to make a second appearance. Occasionally we roll down all the windows, to let the characteristic scent of chicken manure waft in through one window and out the other. Needless to say, I’m loving every minute of it.

When my colleagues and I arrive at the meeting hall, the cooperative of Atok coffee farmers warmly welcomes us with a cup – more like a large vat, actually – of coffee; freshly brewed from their own harvest of 100% Arabica beans.

What I find especially charming is that one of our hosts leads me to the window to point out the exact mountainside where this particular cup of coffee I’m enjoying was grown, picked, processed and roasted. We have all heard stories of cacao farmers who have never had the pleasure of tasting chocolate, but the same cannot be said for the coffee growers of Atok. It seems they enjoy their coffee before and after every meal. What can I say? When in Rome….

We are here for a two-day mentoring session between the cooperative and two experienced business consultants. The cooperative has applied to the Peace and Equity Foundation for a loan, so that they will have enough working capital to grow their social enterprise beyond what it can currently hope to achieve.

But scaling up a small business isn’t easy, especially when you are a small community operating from an isolated location. There are some difficult dilemmas to tackle in the next days, without any necessarily right or wrong answers. From the pricing, accounting, equity side of things to marketing strategies, value chains, and what the coop can offer its members for their loyalty. Observing from my seat near the back, it’s clear this is no one-sided lecture, but a truly interactive conversation with plenty of tough love and critical questions.

It’s mostly the chairman and the manager who do the talking, but occasionally someone from an unexpected corner will pipe up and give their opinion in no uncertain terms. My eyes are drawn to their young secretary seated not far from me, wearing a ski hat despite the uncharacteristically mild weather, carefully taking meticulous notes on her clipboard. She doesn’t say too much, but every so often her eyes light up in understanding, and she makes her soft-spoken contribution.

“Do you mind if I go ahead?” she asks me at dinner, when she has finished eating but I have not. “I always get up at four to cook breakfast for my daughter, so she won’t be late for school. And I still have to hike up that mountain to get home.”

About ten minutes after she leaves, the rain starts to bucket from the skies. She’s carrying a poster with her about coffee planting, which was given out earlier. My colleague wonders out loud if she will fashion it into an improvised umbrella.

Crossposted from Cordaid website

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