Many of the researchers live in the swathe of the country that is rural (really rural) and they all have a component that attempts to measure the economic impact of increased local food production and, in some cases, consumption.  They hope to develop a dollar measure, or in some cases, estimate local agriculture’s share of economic activity. There are good reasons for doing this, and most stem from the current economic climate and federal budgetary concerns. The people in charge of running our country (if we can figure out who they are!) are fixated on jobs or budget deficits, which forces the researchers and academics (whose work is meant to help their local communities) to quantify everything in terms of jobs.

Many are using a boxed program, most often Implan, and the researchers are always surprised and disappointed with the results. I am not surprised by the results: first, the model was built by a solid team, but we really don’t know how they have modeled the economy. Further, the model is built on the current economic system (ie food production is specialized, and then food is shipped around the nation). So the multipliers are based on a model of the economy that differs from the local food systems/economic development approach that many are considering in their research.

We need to think about new ways of measuring economic activity. One possibility is to recreate the input/output models, by making them flexible by allowing researchers to tinker with ranges of local/regional activity. The complexity of such a project is mind boggling.  Another drawback to this approach is that the dollar value is likely to be very small, especially in rural areas. Applying a cost/benefit test that is strictly based on dollars is not likely to garner support from policymakers.

The best possibility (from my vantage) is to embrace the methods of resource economists, where we can quantify rural amenities, the value of communities, and the non-economic value of knowing your farmers (or knowing that you are supporting someone from your region).  By doing so, the economic activity would move beyond “jobs” to a metric that includes the value of the nonmarket aspects of local/regional food. And in fact, most people who buy local/regional food do so for reasons other than money. Of course, the question is how such a measure would be developed, especially if researchers remain in the framework of the input/output model.

Most people assume that local food has fewer emissions, by virtue of being shipped a relatively short distance. And most people think that local food has a lower carbon footprint, for the very same reason. But assessing the influence on carbon footprint needs to consider both production and transportation effects. The famous New Zealand lamb example (so famous that it was written up in the NY Times) suggests that lamb raised in NZ and shipped to the UK might have a lower carbon footprint than lamb raised and sold in the UK.

That is not news. But carbon labels on food are evident in the marketplace (well, honestly, I can’t say that I have seen one in the market. But I am going to check when I get to the Whole Foods on P St).

This brings me to an interesting new paper by Caputo et al that discusses a related matter – that of mandatory food miles labels. The authors study the welfare effects (benefits to consumers, that is) of two different food labels: a carbon dioxide label and a number of miles label.  The goal of their paper is to see if consumer choices respond to the labels, and then to measure the welfare effects of the two labels. They use data collected from a consumer choice survey, conducted in stores in Naples Italy. The consumers are given the choice of an organic fresh tomato, conventional fresh tomato, and nothing. Each choice had two food miles labeled: distance and time food traveled, and the amount of carbon dioxide emitted while being transported.

The conclusions the authors reach are first, that consumers (on average) prefer the organic fresh tomato. Second, consumers benefit more from a label that shows the number of miles food travels than from the label indicating the amount of carbon dioxide emitted. Their analysis indicates that even consumers who are unaware of the label when they buy the product (ie they don’t see it) receive a positive benefit from the label.   Consumers who are aware of the label when buying the product with the label do realize a greater benefit. Note that this result is based on a fairly small sample of Italian consumers (living in one city, who shop in one of three stores).  The findings may not be generalizable to other cities or countries.

Caveats aside, this study suggests that if a country (or local jurisdiction) wants to encourage consumers to buy “local,” a food miles label might be a reasonable policy lever.  Of course, given the lack of scientific evidence regarding the relative carbon footprint of local food, this is probably not a good policy for enhancing environmental quality.

Note that the beginning farmer referred to in the statistics below are the primary farm operator.  Unless otherwise specified, the statistics refer to the year 2011.

• Beginning farmers (average age 49) were, on average, younger than established farmers (average age 60).
• Forty nine percent of beginning farmers were in the age range of 35-49, while 14 percent were less than 35 years old (this surprised me).
• Twelve percent of beginning farmers were women (another surprise).
• Slightly more than 5 percent of beginning farmers raised specialty crops, while approximately 30 percent were farming “general livestock” (this, too, was a surprise).

• Thirty percent of beginning farmers did not produce marketable commodities (in comparison to 25 percent of established farmers).
• In 2010, beginning farmers were more likely to directly market to consumers or restaurants (18 percent vs 13 percent for established farmers).
• Beginning farmers selling directly to consumers, as compared to those selling through an intermediary, were less likely to make a profit.

• In 2011, the average beginning farmer operated a small farm – about half the size of that operated by an established farmer (200 acres, as compared to 434 acres).
• A rule of thumb is that a farm needs to bring in about $25,000 to $30,000 in revenue a year before returns are positive; only 1/4 of beginning farmers earned over $25,000 on the farm (it would be interesting to see how revenues change with farming experience, so we can compare sales for a 2nd year farm to sales from a 9th year farm).
• The average beginning farmer income (from the farm) was $1,902 (compared to more than $18,116 for more experienced farmers).  But total household income from off farm sources was higher for the beginning farmer (about $89K vs. $68K for experienced farmer).

I would love to see a geographic breakdown of these statistics; for example, how do the averages for peri-urban farmers compare to those for rural farmers?  And how does the below 35 year old group compare to the next age group, 35-49? Also, the report is surprisingly quiet on the topic of farming across ethnic groups.

The answers to the questions about the success and challenges for farmers by age are more than intellectual exercises: they important for the future of the food supply of the US, and should ideally guide policies that facilitate the development of the younger segment of the farm production sector.

The one “oldie but goodie” documentary is King Corn, which provides a nice, well researched background into the forces at play in the market. Even if you remove corn from the story, the documentary describes the forces at work that all farmers in the US face (agribusiness research, difficulties faced by farmers, the fact that most farmers aren’t growing food they would eat, the effects of farm policy, and how policy changes have altered the landscape).

Some documentaries become dated, even if they remain interesting to a core group of people. What’s Organic about Organic fits into this category; it is unfortunate because I love the documentary and its message about the benefits of organic. And the cast of characters is superb and knowledgeable about organic. Yet the focus on the now (mostly) resolved pasture controversy makes the film feel dated. In Organic We Trust is on my list (still to be viewed), and I am looking forward to seeing what message the director has for us.

Two documentaries feature farmers and farming in India (Dirt! The Movie and One Man, One Cow and One Planet), although India is not the main focus of either film. Soil is the focus of Dirt and the benefits of biodynamic agriculture are the key point of One Man One Cow. Somehow, the topic of soil quality and compost always brings us to India, although I am not sure why this is the case.  Perhaps because so many people in India are reliant on farming for their food? One Man, One Cow portrays biodynamic farming in India, and shows how the practice of biodynamic farming translates into healthy soil, beautiful fields and high quality food.  Seeing the practical aspects of biodynamic agriculture is a good balance to the esoteric description given by most writers on the topic.  The film states that  biodynamic agriculture has the potential to empower farmers (specifically Indian farmers): by warding off the deleterious results (in terms of soil quality and ability to make a living) of large agricultural input suppliers, the farmers can maintain independence.

Next up, in addition to In Organic We Trust, is The Greenhorns.

People are cheering, and there are many aspects to be pleased about: the main one, from my view, is that the regulators and food companies are starting to realize that consumers really want to know what they are eating. That said, is industry-led labeling of GMOs good for consumers?

Several aspects concern me. One, the food industry and the regulators (mainly FDA) have a historically cozy relationship. Two, even without a cozy relationship between FDA and business, standards that are developed by the industry are going to favor the industry, even if done in consult with the FDA. Three, what information about GMOs will the label contain?

While labels are simple in concept, in practice they are complex. As an example, the GM labels required by the European Union (under EC regulation 1829/2003) indicate that: (1) food made with GM products must be labeled according; (2) food made with GM technology does not have to be labeled; (3) food made from animals that eat GM products also does not have to be labeled.  Freedom of consumer choice is the reason for labeling GM food in the EU.

Would all US consumers agree (and do all EU consumers agree?) upon the set of labeling rules set out by the EC? Consumers are heterogeneous and therefore, labels can’t match the preferences of all consumers. However, if businesses are deciding on the voluntary labels that will be used in the US, how are consumer preferences represented? In this case, how is consumer choice protected?

The business school perspective on industry self-regulation provides a helpful framework for thinking about food industry-led GM labeling, Prof M. Toffel of Harvard Business School, indicates the following are the key factors to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of industry self-regulation: (1) how the rules are designed, (2) who adopts them, (3) how they are enforced, and (4) whether the rules achieve their desired goals.

Second, perhaps the industry anticipates that labeling GMO food is inevitable, and would rather get started now so they control the process? By self-regulating, the industry would decide how Toffel’s items 1-3 are created.  From my vantage, this move does protect consumer choice – instead, it appears to protect industry profits.

GM labels are laudable.  That said, I am not convinced that we’ll be happy with the type of labeling system the industry and the FDA are likely to develop.

In Markets class last night, we watched the documentary The Corporation. This was the best documentary I have seen in a long time; both the information and analysis were on target and insightful. The directors (and the law professor, whose book of the same title was the basis of the movie) clearly spelled out the inherent conflict between firm profits and sustainability (environmental, social, etc).  Even though the topic is something familiar to most of us, the documentary is worth watching. The film covers intense topics with a wonderful humor that does not diminish the seriousness of the path we are on.

In the end, my feelings of social outrage  at the inequities for humans and the ecosystem clashed with my logical economic mind, which completely understands the profit motive.  This documentary reminds me why I am a firm believer in government regulation of business.

While watching this film, my  mind kept straying to two images: one of the coffee farmers in Oaxaca and two, a mother/daughter scene I witnessed in the Whole Foods on Bowery & Houston last Sunday.

The coffee farmers in Oaxaca have organized and formed a cooperative that has successfully made inroads into the global market. But do these farmers actually earn enough to have a middle class lifestyle?

On Sunday, I watched a small girl (maybe 7) and her stylish NY mom examine the Valentine’s Day display at Whole Foods. They looked at different kinds of chocolate, and finally the mother selected something and showed it to her daughter, asking her “do you see who gets the money?” She was referring to a sentence printed on the chocolate wrapper saying some of the proceeds were given to a good cause.

A certain group of consumers has a strong desire to buy goods that provide a benefit to people in need; many of us in that category have more than enough, and want our dollars to provide more than just an additional profit to a large corporation. This mother was in that category, and was clearly trying to teach her daughter that what you buy matters.

Adding to my brain’s fire, this morning, an email landed in my inbox. One item on the list of was the cocoa sustainability initiative of Mars.

However, evidence suggests that meeting that it is not easy to make social change through optimizing ones purchases. How much should the coffee farmers earn? If I am paying $14 a pound for this coffee, why aren’t the farmers lifted a bit higher out of poverty?? While the coffee farmers are working together, trying to compete against the products of large multinational corporations, what about the case of the chocolate? This is an effort by a large multinational corporation, and I am wondering  (1) why is Mars engaged in this type of venture, (2) whether this is greenwashing, and (3) who (other than Mars) is going to benefit from the cocoa sustainability initiative?

The bigger question is: who are we going to entrust with the future of the planet? So far, large corporations have not made decisions that support long term ecosystem and human health. So why let them continue in this fashion? Small ventures like the coffee cooperative in Oaxaca appear more genuine, but do they have a large enough impact? And can they  adequately tackle issues related to ecosystem health?

Next on my agenda is to reread the Shared Value piece by Porter and Kramer, and see where that takes me.

In most cities, terminal markets are superfluous, in that fresh produce largely bypasses the terminal market is sold directly from shipper to retailer. Shippers are firms that aggregate the output of several farmers, and pack (depending on the product) and ship to a retailer. In many cases, shippers provide a range of products rather than just one product (like apples). Most of this strategic behavior on the part of the shippers is a response to supermarket consolidation, which started (roughly) in the 1980s.

The top 8 supermarkets in the US are: Walmart, Kroger, Costco, Supervalu, Safeway, Publix, Ahold, Target (according to produce guru, Roberta Cook). These food stores control about 36 percent of grocery sales, and have all worked to reduce their procurement costs through different types of relationships with their suppliers (the shippers).  The firms took over their own wholesaling and began dealing directly with suppliers. This began the demise of wholesale markets. At the same time, this shift changed contract terms so that many suppliers state that retailers are exerting market power (a topic for another day).

None of this is news. But I have  been wondering whether the relative unimportance of terminal markets applies to the NYC market. After all, there are few large supermarket chains in the city (I can count them on a hand), and much of the food is sold through smaller grocers or bodegas. Plus there seems to be little space for storing large amounts of food. Yet these smaller stores often don’t sell much produce.

Tracking down what happens in that murky space between the farm and the retail store is not easy, and I have spent a fair amount of time over the past 3 days trying to see (1) how much produce really flows through the market, (2) which stores are relying on the terminal market, (3) which supermarkets have private warehouses on site, and (4) whether it would matter to NYC if the wholesalers moved to NJ. Right now, I have incomplete information on the first 3 points.

Hunts Point is interesting for several reasons. Some have identified the site as the perfect place for a regional food hub serving NY, PA, and NJ.  Grownyc has started a wholesale farmers market (open April – end of December), where farmers can sell their local/regional food.  NYC was soliciting proposals for a rooftop greenhouse (I heard from several companies who were bidding), although I haven’t been able to find the outcome of the RFP. However, despite these interesting ventures, one can’t overlook the irony of the fact that the residents of Hunts Point live in a food desert.

I am still determined to find accurate measures of the flow of produce through the terminal market, and have a few emails out.

Off to class.

Back in New York, standing at the coffee counter, I studied the maps hanging on the wall. They featured coffee growing regions from around the world— making little Oaxaca appear so tiny in comparison. I read the shop’s description for one of the offerings, and amongst all its other details it noted that the varietal was “patio-dried.” I had never stopped to think about this simple descriptor before. And now for the first time I really understood what it meant, and I thought about the actual patios that served as the drying beds for the fresh green coffee beans. It was a detail, like so many others, that I had often overlooked.

Coffee beans patio-drying in Loxicha, Oaxaca.

A little more than a week ago our bus was carefully winding its way up mountain roads as we ventured towards Loxicha. As we climbed higher and higher through the atmosphere, an entirely new ecosystem presented itself through the fog. Floriberto Zaqueo, a coordinator with the CEPCO organization that we’d met that same morning, was bringing us to his family’s organic coffee farm. We’d left the sunny disposition of Oaxaca City and found ourselves amongst pine trees and a misty breeze rising from the ocean nearly 6,000km below. After hours of weaving steadily upwards, we made our way to the village. Our gigantic red bus was met with the gawking and giggling of nearly a hundred school children. Our group of 15 made a sharp contrast to the dirt roads and corrugated steel roofs that greeted us. The scene was striking. Houses were eye-level with the clouds, doors were held shut with padlocks, and eyes peeped out at us through small windows in the partitions.

Octavio (our friend from UPAEP) spoke to me about “two different Mexicos,” and Loxicha was definitely the “other” one. This was the kind of village most people never even thought to venture to. There were no official sights or shops, except for the occasional storefront selling Coca-Cola and bottled water (incidentally owned by Coke as well). Loxicha was undoubtedly poor, but I had to wonder, was this the type of community that suffered most in Mexico? Economically disadvantaged and secluded—yes—but were they able to fair a little better, holding onto at least some of their autonomy, subsisting in the mountains, committed to a cooperative determined to get fair prices for their exports? As opposed to perhaps their indigenous counterparts trying to make a go of it working the unofficial sector in the surrounding cities? Or those families separated by a father and son’s migration to the U.S.? From any angle the inequality in Mexico is polarizing, to say the very least. This disparity is just one of the many reasons a community driven organization like CEPCO is so important.

Noting the apparent lack of resources, I asked Floriberto how it was that these coffee growing communities, separated by so many miles of tumultuous terrain, came to organize themselves so successfully. He told me, “there was no other way,” because they “needed better prices for [their] coffee.” Determined to get higher prices for their beans, they joined together and demanded better compensation (which worked out to roughly $1.29 per one pound of coffee, and was—surprise, surprise—contingent upon the NYSE). While this is far lower than farmers should receive for their beans (seeing as how I just purchased a pound of coffee for $14.00—something’s not adding up!) it is still a much better price than they could command unorganized on their own. The coop also enables them to cut out the cost of needless middlemen, as they work to purchase their own trucks and storage facilities.

We continued down the road eager to reach the farm. We came to a small building at the top of a hill, and a beaming woman ran out to greet us. This was Floriberto’s wife. They were both visibly excited to see one another as Floriberto had just spent a week at the CEPCO training facility in the city. She then greeted the rest of us with hugs and smiles. After the warm, but brief meeting, she rejoined the rest of her friends on the nearby porch and we continued down the hill. I saw some dark red cherries peeping out from the side of the road. “Whose tree is this,” I asked. I was nonchalantly informed that those were “just wild.” That was almost too much for my nerdy coffee brain to handle, “wild!?” While I was trying to wrap my head around this new information, we kept walking and came upon a small opening in the trees. We followed our guide single file through the entrance and down the foggy incline. Those in the front of the line were obscured by the thick grey mist and tall(er than expected) coffee trees. The path was rocky, narrow, and steep, and the trees stretched out as far as you could see. The air smelled like citrus and wet earth. We continued carefully down the mountainside for nearly half an hour, trying to take in everything we could from this new place. This was special. This was someone’s life. But, as gorgeous as it all was, it was also incredibly difficult to imagine the reality of working this mountainous land, and navigating these woods with heavy, cumbersome coffee sacks.

As we continued our downhill hike, we came upon an older woman collecting ripened cherries near a clearing. The clearing led to a small house on leveled land. The woman wore a simple white dress, smiled slightly, and only spoke Zapotec. This turned out to be Floriberto’s mother. She came back to the house when we arrived, but generally kept to her own business as her son spoke to us about the processes of the coffee harvest.

Harvesting

Walking back through the forest you notice again these gorgeous bright cherries staring back at you—all different shades of reds, greens, oranges, and yellows. While beautiful, these little beacons in the grey are different colors because they all ripen at different times. Each branch filled with different hues, this adds another intricate complication to the farming process. The cherries need to be handpicked—each branch of each tree needs to be combed thoroughly to find the ripe beans. So now we can add on patience and extreme attention to detail to the already impressive attributes of strength, stamina, and ingenuity that it takes to be a coffee farmer. These growers are not only stewards of the land, they are artisans, and they most definitely deserve to be compensated as such.

Loxicha cherries

Organic coffee is an incredibly valuable commodity that commands a high price on the market, and acknowledging the labor intensive methods of production it demands, it absolutely should. However, the unfortunate reality is that the majority of coffee growers are not seeing the better part of our actual coffee dollars even with free trade agreements in place. That money is going to roasters, marketers, exporters, and grocery stores. It’s depressing, but the situation is not entirely hopeless. Cooperatives like CEPCO are working to take a step further than just relying on a fair trade system. They are aligning themselves with what are referred to as direct trade options instead. With a growing specialty coffee industry, this is fortunately becoming a viable opportunity for many small growers. In speaking with Floriberto I learned that CEPCO has partnered with Intelligentsia, a Chicago based roasting company that focuses on buying beans directly from growers. In this particular partnership, it means that a representative from Intelligentsia visits the farm about three times a year. They come during the planning stage, at harvest time, and post-purchase. They do this to assess if the growers (in this case Floriberto’s parents) are committed to healthy environmental and social practices, and of course to determine quality of the crop. The direct trade criteria dictates that the verifiable price to the grower and/or coop (not just the exporter) must be at least 25% above Fair Trade prices, and that all trade participants be open to financial disclosure. This is an amazing way for growers to ensure higher prices for their products and to make sure that more money stays within a given community.

So if it’s feasible for you, try and grab your next cup of coffee from a shop that actually supports these direct trade relationships. Ask them who their roasters are, find out where the beans come from—and who knows, maybe you’ll end up with a taste of that misty Oaxacan mountainside in your cup.

Monday was a day of ascents: we rode up the mountain from Oaxaca to San Augustin Loxicha over the course of five hypnotizing hours filled with endless curves, a very big bus navigating the precarious turns of a very small mountain pass road.

A day of descents: once in the village, we followed our guide – one of the five leaders of CEPCO we met in the morning, who made the journey with us from Oaxaca to his home village – as he led us from the town towards a coffee plantation on the side of the mountain, plunging downward on foot for 30 minutes on winding narrow paths into a fog of which we could see no bottom or end. Yet we trusted him and followed him. A black dog from the village joined our group along the way and was a steady presence as he brought up the rear.

It was a day of fog and clarity. The farther down we went, the more humid it became, the more we started sweating and the more viscerally we understood the nature of coffee production in this moment, in this village. The fog was thick and wet – upon arriving back in Oaxaca late last night the smell of it lingered on our ragged clothing. We curved around eerie corn stalks standing perfectly still like phantoms in the fog, we nibbled on coffee berries, we imagined what it must be like to walk up the mountain while hauling bags of coffee beans on one’s back. We looked up behind us every so often, impressed with how far we had come already, conscious of the fact that, (as our guide Octavio said to us all) “what comes down must go back up!” The plantation was always just around the next bend, just beyond the next tree. We walked and walked, our calves and thighs still tight from Sunday’s hike.

We finally came to a clearing with a small shack. We were introduced to a woman who was working there as she slowly and methodically picked cherries off the trees on the side of the shack. After the ripe red berries are harvested from the trees, the berries are left to ferment for 14 hours. They are then skinned, the pulp is removed, and the coffee bean that remains is washed and dried over a period of three to five days. The individual farmer’s responsibility ends here, as the beans are then sent to the warehouse up the mountain in the village, where CEPCO weighs and sorts and then transports the beans.

We began our walk back up the mountain, back into the fog. And we thought about the economics of this whole system: we learned that a pound of coffee is worth $1.90 when sold for export (a $1.40 base price plus a .30/pound premium markup paid by the consumer for the Fair Trade Certification and a .20/pound social bonus markup). This goes to the individual farmer, and when a contract dictates a higher price, the additional pesos go to the farmer as well. This all bodes well for the farmers, as does the fact that the warehouse and the truck are owned by CEPCO itself. Moreover, in allowing for a more sustainable and profitable coffee production business, men have a reason to stay in the village and not migrate looking for work in other Mexican cities or in the U.S. Despite the higher price per pound generated by the Fair Trade certification, farmers still do not make very much money per year: less than $700 per hectare per year growing coffee.

Even though we aren’t the type of people to trespass, we sometimes found ourselves practically stepping over the line into dangerous territory. I had been there before on this trip, inexplicably stepping into a bullfighting ring to try my hand at being a matador. That was my Ernest Hemingway moment, which was fueled in part by the glass of pulque I had before leaping in. On this day, however, the road was so narrow that the bus practically backed up off the mountain trying to execute a 3-point turn. There was also a sense that if it got too dark or too foggy, the bus would simply not be able to navigate the roads to make it back down safely. So time was running short from the start. We could not hold off sundown as long as we would have liked.

Yet every step up and down, every twist and turn of the bus, was filled with increasing wonder, a feeling that we were in the midst of some unexpected adventure unfolding on the side of this mountain, in this small Mexican village, far off the path most Americans would travel in this country. And now we will never look at our daily cup of coffee in the same way – there will always be the fog, and the berries, and the sweat pouring down our faces as we hiked. There will always be an immense respect for the small producers who work tirelessly to provide us with the products we crave and love, and who deserve support from their government, and loyalty from us as both consumers and activists.

The chocolate is used for making drinking chocolate, which is traditionally mixed with water (rather than milk) and is heated to 45-50 degrees C. The low temperature allows the chocolate to slowly melt, without losing any of the smell of the chocolate. Their final product is made from Mexican cacao (Mexico is in the top ten for cacao production), which is raised in the thinnest portion of the country which is in the south (and is where we are right now).  Most of the growers are small scale right now, but the company seems to be making a shift in its practices: they bought 500 acres and have farmers planting cacao, which will eventually bear fruit (3-4 years before a tree produces).

Like most of the other producers and manufacturers we have visited, Mayordomo is concerned with both quality and safety. To ensure a high quality product, they procure beans and sugar that are certified kosher.  There is a food scientist on staff. and her job is to test the chocolate for pathogens.

A large part of the production process is manual: at different stages of roasting and toasting, men are loading and unloading bags of beans into machinery (and then back into bags).  Pastes made of beans and cinnamon are manually mixed into sugar. Chocolate is unmolded by women, who hand wrap the packages in foil. Boxes of chocolate (intended for retailing) are manually wrapped, and then sent through a machine for shrinking.

The squares of chocolate are about 3 by 3 inches, and consist of 9 equal sized smaller squares. When the women unmold chocolate (all of this is done is a cold room, by women wearing white rubber boots), the chocolate is popped out onto long metal pans that hold 120 bars, 5 deep by 24 wide. The chocolate is not touched by a hand for more than 10 seconds – after 40 seconds, it would start to melt.

The company is in the process of mechanizing many of its manual processes, which will allow their production to increase by a factor of 5. When they shift to the machines, they will roll out a new brand, but will still (I think this is what he said) maintain their handwrapped line.

Tonight is our farewell dinner, and tomorrow we’ll head to the Mexico City airport at 4:30 am. All in all, it has been an amazing trip. One student has promised a guest blog on the trip to the coffee farm that I had to miss yesterday. For many reasons, my heart is broken over that; most significantly is that our UPEAP host, Octavio, was surprised and shocked that the coffee farmers make such little money – less than $700 (US) per hectare for one year’s work – and these are farmers connected with a coffee cooperative (the one we visited yesterday morning).  This morning he told me he could not believe that, given that a cup of coffee costs $4 in NYC. I love watching people realize (1) how hard it is to produce food, and (2) that farmers do not make a lot of money for their efforts, and I am sorry to have missed that.