Rainforest Alliance held an educational seminar at Selva Negra for all those certified farms within the country. The seminar was to discuss recertification and for the education of the workers within the farms. In most cases, not for Selva Negra, the owners of the coffee plantation do not live on the farm, therefore all the responsibility for maintaining the farm up to Rainforest Alliance standards rests on the hands and minds of the workers at the estates. This was the central focus for this educational seminar. Two workers were invited per certified farm (or in progress of being certified) 11 farms both from Nicaragua and Honduras. After a thorough explanation of the rules and regulations, a group of approximately 40 took a walk throughout the estate to perform an audit and identify those places that were within regulations as well as those that were not. It was important for us to have the workers understand all these regulations, since although we live and work on the farm on a daily basis, hearing the regulations from the Rainforest Alliance personnel makes it that much more critical to keep up the work that has brought us this far. Thank you Rainforest Alliance for your time and your training, it has been of great value to us. In the future, once the workers know how to detect failures, we will do the same type of internal audit for the resort and the cattle farm, in order to have the entire estate all in great shape.
Comments of Selva Negra Workers on Rainforest Alliance's Educational Visit
The education of the workers who have their hands on the coffee is always a high priority for us at Selva Negra, that is why we were so excited when Rainforest Alliance offered to do this seminar with that explicit purpose. We would like to share with all of you some of the direct benefits of this education by providing for you some of the things that our workers said regarding the seminar with Rainforest Alliance.
Here is a brief review of some of the things they mentioned, for the full interviews please click here:
What did you learn from the presentation?
- I learned about the critical points of inspections, such as contaminated water
- I also learned the way they do the auditing. You see, we did the auditing of the farm, I walked with others who had much more knowledge than me, more education, and I could see why they were finding things that we overlooked, or that we did not consider important, it was very interesting to see how to audit a farm, now wherever I go, I try to see what could be wrong in that or the other area.
How will you be changing the things you do?
- By protecting the creeks more, planting bushes that will protect the water streams so we do not let it evaporate, at least not on any part of this farm.
- Well, I will not change anything, I think what we do at the farm with the coffee water is great.
What do you consider to be the most important part of your work?
- The handling of organic produce as I learned how it reduces the pollution not only of the farm, but of the whole area around us by not using the chemicals.
- My work at the laboratory. I think that I am part of the most important thing in the whole farm, and that is to get the best results out of the organic pesticide and organic fertilizer, the more we produce, the better the farm will be.
We would like to dedicate a little space in this newsletter to discuss rainforest alliance certification in an effort to inform some of our readers that might not be familiar with it. The Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of tropical forests. In 1991, Rainforest Alliance started a labeling program that they called ECO-O.K, this is a certification of sustainable operating practices which goes above and beyond the maintenance of the crop itself. Currently, Rainforest Alliance is certifying among others: bananas, coffee, oranges, cocoa, and flowers. Some of the standards that Rainforest Alliance uses for certification include:
Conservation:
- No deforestation of new farms
- Protect wildlife and native plants
- Conserve forest patches and take measures to improve them as wildlife habitat
- Protect streams and enact special protection for wetlands and riparian areas
- Mandatory canopy cover over coffee and cocoa
- Fair and just treatment of workers
- Work should not interfere with education for children
- Dignified housing for workers living on the farm, including access to potable water
- Access to health care, including regular, mandatory, medical checkups for workers who apply agrochemicals
- Always a fair price and a green premium where possible
- Soil conservation
- Vegetative cover
- Comprehensive waste management to reduce, reuse and recycle
- Water conservation and reutilization
- Pollution control, including processing plants and mills
Selva Negra's Continuing Education
At Selva Negra we strive to keep in the forefront of environmental practices and we recognize that this requires constant education. This year two personnel from the farm, Don Otto and Don Goyo went to a learning trip to the coffee plantations to El Salvador. They visited several farms and learned from their working methods. They saw how hard it was to produce with little water and how some farms use a common wet mill for their harvest. They also visited some Rainforest Alliance certified farms and witnessed how these farms are working in improving their social conditions and coffee shade. One thing in particular that they liked was a unique pruning system of the coffee. We will experiment with it on our next pruning season in 2007. Another practice that they brought home was the use of coffee husk as a fuel system; we've already copied this system and are currently using it at the farm. They visited dry mills and saw how they dry and store the coffee. They visited Procafe, the coffee organization of El Salvador where they do soil test, and other coffee analysis for interest of all the coffee producers, such as experiment with coffee borer traps, bees for pollinations and also how the bees feed on the borer. These were all wonderful learning experiences that have already made changes at Selva Negra. We look forward to more opportunities of learning from other farms, as well as hosting personnel from farms who are interested in learning from us.
