The wing beat of a butterfly
If you want to visit Doña Sixta, 61, you need a donkey. Or heat-suitable hiking boots, a damn good condition and alert senses. Because the way to their lonely finca leads strictly uphill on donkey paths, rivers and weathered tree trunks. In the middle of a bright green thicket, from which it constantly shrieks, chirps, hisses, croaks and barks. Doña Sixta lives with her husband on a mountain somewhere deep in the tropical rainforest of Nicaragua. She is standing on this mountain now, watching with amusement the slowly climbing red-faced visitor snake. It's not often that sweating Europeans stop by. Actually it never happens. She cooked a huge pot of coffee over the open hearth in her log cabin? the shrubs grow right next to their house. Rarely has a coffee tasted so good.
From the cocoa beans their future depends
Doña Sixta tackles herself.
But it is not the delicious coffee that brings to this day a small delegation of Austrian Fairtrade Fairtrade employees. But the cocoa, which she grows around her hut under shady nutmeg trees. Now, just before the start of the rainy season, the big, yellow-colored fruits are harvested. It is Doña Sixta's first cocoa crop. And at the same time their most important. Because of the quality of the cocoa beans, which they and many other small farmers in the region around the town of Waslala will peel, ferment and dry out of the fruit in the next few weeks, their future depends on having something to eat every day, education for the children, maybe even a doctor visit. And in the long run: better infrastructure, roads, hospitals, welfare centers. And once in a lifetime an idea of human rights. Even for women. Or none of that.
Hard to imagine that a few cocoa beans should do something like that. But what is true in chaos theory? namely, that the wingbeat of a butterfly can affect the global weather?, so does the globalized economy: sometimes it's the small movements that change everything.
Sepp Zotter from Styria was one of the first to beat his wings. Zotter has been producing high-class and boldly composed chocolates since 1987 in his Riegersburg family business. Varieties such as Graumohn-Kirsch, Bergkäse- Walnüsse grapes or pineapple and peppers quickly found a large crowd of fans in Austria. Zotter has also recorded double-digit growth rates in Germany for years. This is partly due to Zotter's quality concept: all ingredients must come from organic farming. And, in addition, have been fairly traded, for which the Fairtrade seal on the packaging vouches. Above all, it is the taste of chocolate that thrills the buyers. Your very special, mysterious recipe.
Even the Aztecs appreciated cocoa so much that they used it as a means of payment. A slave cost a hundred beans? the yield from about five fruits. Even after the abolition of slavery, this Aztec original cocoa, the Criollo, is regarded as extremely precious. And then, as now, he is a rarity. Because Criollo brings only very low yields, is sensitive and susceptible to disease. Who wants to survive, grows other varieties.
When Sepp Zotter meets Waslala
The cocoa fruit
Sepp Zotter has been looking for producers in Central America for years, who are prepared to deliver high-quality organic cocoa for good money. And raise at least a small contingent of Criollo plants. Because the Criollo is the secret of Zotter chocolate. Nicaragua did not seem suitable at first. The country had lost its access to world trade due to the long civil war, continued corrupt administration and catastrophic infrastructure. The few farmers who still produce cocoa did that for local markets? and in particularly bad quality. But in the Waslala mountain community, in the middle of the jungle of Central Nicaragua, eight bumpy jeep-hours from the capital, Managua, there was a second butterfly that flapped its wings.
They were desperate campesinos, peasants who joined together to form the production cooperative Acawas. An agricultural cooperative supported by know-how, personnel and funds from Austrian development aid. Monocultures, overgrazing and soil erosion had the land of the campesinos? if they had any left after the Civil War? made unusable in large part. The rest was caused by plant pests, price erosion and tropical cyclones. Also Doña Sixta was one of the desperate. She and her family of ten kept escaping the hordes of soldiers, which is close to a miracle in the area around Waslala. But nothing remained. In Acawas, she learned to diversify.So not only to grow coffee, but also vegetables and fruits, such as beans, bananas, mangoes and yucca. She learned what she had to plant to avoid the dreaded soil erosion. And she no longer brought her harvest to the markets in days long donkey marches, but delivered them to the cooperative for a fixed price. And they took care of the further sales with the support of the Austrian organization Horizont3000.
When Sepp Zotter began to be interested in Nicaraguan cocoa, he came across the Acawas. And when the Acawas began to be interested in supra-local commerce, did they encounter Sepp Zotter? and on FairTrade. And Doña Sixta placed the first Criollo plantlets on top of her mountain in the damp tropical forest soil.
Anti-capitalism is a mental attitude, at least the World Bank is completely unsuspicious. All the more credible is one of her latest studies dealing with the international non-profit organization FairTrade. Their projects, according to the World Bank, have now had a similarly positive impact on economic and social development in so-called backwater areas, such as the investments of mega corporations. FairTrade does not take any money and does not pay for it. The organization only certifies fair trade between small farmers in developing countries and customers in industrialized nations. Provided both partners meet the demanding fair trade criteria. It is well-known that customers like Sepp Zotter have to pay fair prices to their raw material suppliers so that they can survive. This is the economic benefit of a Fair Trade label for small farmers around the world. It is less well known that fair trade also makes demands on farmers. And it is precisely these requirements that cause social change in the long term. For example, the campesinos have to be cooperatively organized. Democratic action and equal rights for each member are strictly prescribed by Fairtrade. Also and especially for women. In a macho country like Nicaragua, where one woman is less important than a horse, it is hard to learn. As heavy as the absolute ban on child labor. But who sends his little daughters to the field instead of to school will not get a seal.
So far, they only had something to eat when they disregarded rights.
Ines Mendoza, a young economist from the economically rising Costa Rica, advises the campesinos on their certification process on behalf of FairTrade. She can explain well. She tries to make the incomprehensible understandable. Because it is by no means easy to convey to starving people that there are rich people who eat a product only if it has been produced politically correct. It is not easy to explain to them what political correctness is in the eyes of the rich at all. And it is certainly not easy to answer the question, why now suddenly as a striking selling point. So far, the farmers had to learn that it cared no one, whether they starved, died of fever or beaten to death by soldiers. So far, they have learned that they only had food to eat if they disregarded the rights of their children and their wives. So far, they have learned that human rights have always been those of the strongest. So, should it be the other way around?
The cocoa beans must taste better than before. For this new varieties have to be cultivated. And after the harvest, the beans are to be stored for days at a constant temperature in wooden crates so that they can ferment and develop their fine chocolate flavor. Such claims are more likely to shine. Because the whites from the industrial nations are spoiled. That, however, is no secret.
FairTrade products are enjoyment
In fact, Fairtrade sealed agricultural products are conquering more and more world market shares? because they are a pleasure. The reasons for this are diverse. FairTrade products are not from mass production. They usually have an outstanding quality, because they are close to the heart of their producers? just because there is a reasonable price for it. And they are usually free from residues.
Even Doña Sixta only shakes her head when asked about crop protection or fertilizers: she can not really afford that kind of thing. One's need is the other's virtue. So intertwined does human life work. And with him the global economy. But proclaiming this complicated wisdom is not the goal of the FairTrade employees who climbed the green hills of Doña Sixta that day. And not that Sepp Zotter is now satisfied with the cocoa samples from Waslala. Doña Sixta will receive more than $ 700 from him for her harvest. She will be able to buy a gauze bandage and some iodine if she chops her fingers again with the machete. She will be able to hire a seasonal worker to help. Because gradually she realizes her age. And she might support one of her sons in training. That's a lot of progress. But even greater than progress is hope.And that's the message of the FairTrade people, who are all seeing for the first time in their lives now, what a hard job it is to harvest cocoa: there is hope at last. In any case, as long as consumers in Europe are prepared to pay well for exceptionally good chocolate.
