The roar of machinery and the smell of roasting coffee is overwhelming as we walk into the offices of the Mother Earth Coffee Cooperative. Big burlap bags are stacked across one long wall. Another wall displays pictures of Alicia Morales, the coop’s president, touring sights in England and Germany. There’s a certificate proving that she’s completed a course in plantation administration, and another congratulating her on finishing an English course. After her husband died, Alicia agreed to step up from her role as secretary to president of the coop, because she wanted to fulfill his dream of a
In Another Direction: Santiago Texacuangos Coop
Alicia Morales
strong cooperative. But after she spent a few days huddled at the computer with the accountant and a Spanish/English dictionary, trying to fill out import/export forms, Alicia realized that she needed to upgrade her skills if she was going to succeed in her new role. Ever since, she’s been putting one piece after another in place, leading the organization in new directions. Now, she’s not just fulfilling someone else’s dream, she’s offering her own unique vision to the business.
When she took over in the mid-90s, the coop was in danger of defaulting on its mortgage and losing its building and equipment. Things are still tough, as they are for anyone who grows coffee in the world. Even though consumers know the price of coffee has gone up on their end, growers are receiving ever-lower prices for their crops. Today, the coop gets two dollars per pound for the 50,000 pounds of coffee that it exports. It still hasn’t met its promised annual goal to the fifty-one farmers in the coop, since it has stiff competition from at least ten other Salvadoran coops that sell overseas. But Alicia has led the coop to seek certifications from outside organizations, so that they can advertise their coffee as organic and rain-forest-friendly, giving them an edge on the competition. While other coops focus on sales to the U.S. and Canada (the coop does sell in the U.S., under the Mother Earth brand name), Alicia’s parlayed the contacts she’s made with visiting European church groups into sales on that continent, where consumers are very willing to pay for organically grown products. When the coop switched to a different technology to wash their beans, the old stone bins became tanks for an experiment in farming tilapia, a tasty, popular fish.
The coop's main sales office
Into the fields
It took me a while to figure out that "shade-grown" meant "under your feet on the path." My friend, the coffee plant (right)
The coop's processing plant
The tilapia tanks
Alicia’s now in her seventh semester of English. She wants to develop exhibits about coffee farming that might attract more tourist-buyers to the coop. And she wants the rest of the coop leadership to catch her excitement about continuing education and business development. Right now, as she puts it, she’s ringing the bell, saying the Mass and collecting the money. She realizes that in a healthy organization like a coop, everyone has to share the leadership. It’s a model of health that’s a real gift not only to her coop, but to her country.
