An effort beyond charity

Two of our girls were exhausted—the desperate screaming of chickens being plucked had awoken them at 5 a.m. Another had biting ants swarm up her pant leg—twice. Most were generally sleep deprived, unaccustomed to their unheated, mostly open-air homes, where a warm shower was simply an unfulfilled promise. The blisters I got from the machetes and hoes were bleeding freely. All in all, we found out very quickly that life at Columbia had not necessarily prepared us for the hard existence of the coffee farmers of Guatemala. However, according to Timoteo Minas, one of our host farmers from our eight-day trip this winter break, coffee farmers are far better off now than they were five years ago, when they began working with As Green As It Gets, the Non-Governmental Organization specializing in micro-finance with whom we planned our trip.

Anthropology and Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures majors (three of the eight students on the trip) may be inclined to shy away from seemingly colonialist methods of foreign aid such as micro-finance and the “Marshall Plan for Africa” put forward by Columbia Business School Dean Glenn Hubbard. The lack of appeal of such methods stems from their reliance upon an American-style capitalism that encroaches into the lives of the local people. AGAIG founder and Director Franklin Voorhes himself cites “developing and enabling a culture of entrepreneurship like that which exists in the States” as a primary goal of his organization. That may not be a culturally relativist standpoint, but the farmers I spoke to raved about the improvements working with this NGO brought to their lives. They have, for example, been able to make additions to their homes that allow them to comfortably house and provide for their children, resulting in a higher graduation rate from high school—a rare occurrence in rural Guatemala, especially for girls.

According to Voorhes, his organization helped found the San Miguel Escobar coffee co-operative five years ago.  The farmers had previously been victimized by a system that prohibited them from occupying more of the value chain of coffee production. As explained by Voorhes and Peace Corps volunteer Alexander Nixon, the fincas (plantations) bought raw coffee fruit from farmers at ridiculously low prices, which amount to well below a livable wage. They then processed the coffee fruit into green coffee (which is called “gold coffee” in Guatemala because of its value) and perhaps roasted it, before selling it to Westerners for a large profit. Now, says Sr. Minas, loans and technical advice from AGAIG have allowed the farmers of San Miguel Escobar to start processing and roasting coffee themselves, adding massively to their profit margins. Other members of the co-op, like Alberto Hernandez and Filiberto Salazar, say that, as farmers in the village, they saw the improvement in quality of life for those who were working with AGAIG. Soon, more and more overcame their fear of working with gringos and joined in.  The co-op now consists of 47 farmers, and Sr. Minas reports that the group hopes to one day include all of the farmers in San Miguel Escobar.

AGAIG’s small business loans have also allowed the children and wives of the farmers to help support their families. For example, Maria Bonita is 14. She sells 1500 units of lip-balm a year, which allows her to pay for her own education and help her father feed her 10 siblings. Perhaps more importantly, she is learning to handle money and run a business, just as American kids who run a lemonade stand do. These micro-businesses also create some financial wiggle-room for the farmers, which may allow them to invest more money back into their business: to buy a decaffeinator, more land, etc. This latter consequence is vital as it will, I believe, allow tiny coffee co-ops (for example) to grow into small to medium-sized businesses that can really provide jobs through trickle-down economics to a poor town, which is what Dean Hubbard believes is the key to ending world poverty. 

Dean Hubbard and, on a smaller scale, the proponents of micro-finance are laying the groundwork for a system that combines idealism and actual change. Cultural relativist criticism is all well and good in the ivory tower; however, the efficacy of aid based on business rather than charity can be judged from the response of the people to whom it is given. Whether or not such programs, which strive to fundamentally change the economic structure and culture of impoverished areas, actually improve lives should not be judged based on a definition of “improvement” created by a neocolonial power seeking to reshape the “third world” in its own image. Rather, those whose lives these initiatives aim to improve should judge the efficacy of such programs themselves. For me, living among the farmers in Guatemala and hearing their assessments of working with micro-finance has invalidated the criticism of business-based aid as a culturally imperialist approach.

The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in anthropology.