Can micro coffee enterprises create opportunities for women? Evidence from coffee micro-mills from Costa Rica's Los Santos region, Tarrazu coffee
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This presentation was given by Milagro Nunes-Solis (INDER), as part of the Annual Scientific Conference hosted by the University of Canberra and co-sponsored by the University of Canberra, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research. The event took place on April 2-4, 2019 in Canberra, Australia. Read more: https://www.canberra.edu.au/research/faculty-research-centres/aisc/seeds-of-change and https://gender.cgiar.org/annual-conference-2019/
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Can micro coffee enterprises create opportunities for women? Evidence from coffee micro-mills from Costa Rica's Los Santos region, Tarrazu coffee
- 1. Can micro coffee enterprises create opportunities for women? Evidence from Coffee Micro-mills from Costa Rica’s Los Santos region, Tarrazu coffee. Seeds of Change Conference Canberra 2019 Milagro Nunez-Solis Nazmun Ratna Christopher Rosin Lincoln University, New Zealand
- 2. Context Changes in the coffee market • Relationship Coffee Model (RCM) • Private family enterprises called micro-mills • Not part of cooperative marketing structures • Have abandoned certification Women traditional roles in coffee • Household space • Women´s work in coffee is an extension of their household unpaid work Diverse Economies • How individualised, market- based strategies can facilitate women empowerment • To capture those more-than- economic benefits the RCM can provide.
- 3. Motivation • What are the roles of women in micro-mill households, their degree of participation and sense of empowerment in the coffee activity in Tarrazú • To examine the empowerment process micro-mill women have gone through, not just in terms of agency, but their self-awareness of the changes they are making in their communities. • Weak understanding of the constraints on and advances in gender empowerment at the processing, trading, roasting and retailing stages.
- 4. Theoretical Framework Conventional Micro-mill producers Trading Roasting Retailing National Market Primary production Processing Selling Trading Roasting Retailing Global Coffee Value-Chain A) Economic Development SDG 2 and 5 WEAI and 5Ds (Alkire et al., 2013) -Production/Processing -Resources -Income -Leadership -Labour B) Sociology and feminist sociology Scholarship (O'Hara & Clement, 2018) (Kabeer, 1999, 2005, 2017,) (Rowlands, 1995) -Power to -Power with Empowerment -Power within (critical consciousness)
- 5. Women Roles in Micro-mills Management and accounting Quality control of washing, drying and packaging processes Quality control on coffee profiles Buyers and traders negotiations Visit national and international fairs Control of certification schemes Associated business for national market (roasted coffee, coffee sub-products, coffee tours)
- 6. WEAI’s 5 Domains Decision making over processing activities. Ownership of significant resources (land) Income and control over its investment Labour time and leisure time Leadership: public participation and organizations membership.
- 7. Household work central to micro mills’ functioning • “By giving them [husband and sons] clean clothes, food and a clean house, is the way I contribute to the micro-mill during harvest season. I think they have lots of work and I can help with those things.”
- 8. Processing: decision-making and autonomy “Now I can take the decisions without waiting for them [my parents] to give me an answer […] I do everything, from cleaning the storage building so it looks organized up to all the permits and paperwork for Icafe. I also create marketing stories to attract new clients.. I’m the one in charge of negotiations with clients. So, yes, my life has changed a lot”. “Decisions must be taken together […] I have always said there must be equality, but for some things no—for example, mechanical issues. My husband is the one that knows about it. However, there are many situations I lead decisions—for example, the roasting types. Many times, I think my ideas are better. I tell him and what we do is [use our ideas] to complement [each other’s]”.
- 9. Income: Control over the use of income “I do not like to beg for money. I’m very happy about having my own income. Most of the money [I get from selling] roasted coffee is for the kids’ university. The rest is for my personal expenses and a little goes to the house expenses […] I also have my own things. I don’t have to ask my husband for a body cream or a shampoo”.
- 10. Leadership: speaking in public and group membership. “When I began, I used to go to coffee meetings and there were only men. Now it is different because Tania is there too. But, in the beginning, there were not even young people (…) Us women, we are opening our own spaces in coffee. There are families that don’t have sons and have a micro- mill; women have been the ones embracing those roles”.
- 11. Empowerment that is transformative Empowerment has to do with the many ways they have become self-aware of recent changes in their agency in coffee It refers to: • New skills acquired • The gratification of being acknowledged by people in the coffee sector. • The satisfaction from sharing their knowledge • The opening of doors for women in the coffee sector
- 12. Power-within “Has helped me to notice I can take challenges and I have been able to keep ahead with them […] we don’t fear anymore to do certain things. I used to limit myself, but now challenges are different [...] I compare myself to my twin sister, she tells me she does not understand how I’m so brave to do all of these things. She still keeps a low profile as a housewife, she is not even able to go to the grocery store alone.”
- 13. Conclusions • Women involved in micro-mills have reached significant advances in WEAI’s five domains and demonstrate critical consciousness. • The RCM has opened opportunities for women to be part of the national and international Coffee Value Chain • Value adding activities are an important option for women in coffee • Women have take the lead of activities that are highly skilled • A qualitative approach to women empowerment in agriculture allows to understand better gender roles transformations (Power within) • DE approach in the context of specialty coffee production affirms the contribution of women’s economic strategies and non-paid activities to the household and family enterprise.
Editor's Notes
- DE and feminist thinking are linked not only in terms of a call for action for economic and social transformation, but they also reflect on how traditional measurements of economic growth, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), fail to account for the social reproductive work of women42. Therefore, Gibson-Graham (2006a,b) argues that the nonpaid work by women in the home constitutes an economic entity by itself, where market and nonmarket negotiations take place among women and family members. Such a perspective differs from others which situate households as a space that only consumes and depends on the external economy. Instead, they argue, the household economy is supported thanks to the work of many people and the intricate interdependence of household members, the community and market-based economies (Gibson-Graham et al., 2013).
- These approaches to women’s empowerment and participation are missing key analytical categories such as agency, women’s lived experience of their empowerment and women’s cultural significance of empowerment
- Conducted 33 surveys and 15 in depth interviews
- Multiple ways in which women contribute to the coffee economy in Los Santos through paid and non-paid work, and transactions made in their homes and the micro-mills. Men perceived women to be more suited to micro-milling activities because they are considered to be more creative, innovative, and organized with better fine motor skills, and with more sensibility. Lopez et al. (2017) Women have taken advantage of such skills to assume leading roles in the processing and selling stages in the CVC. Micro-mill tasks include operational activities from washing, crushing, de-pulping and drying, to administrative and management tasks of accounting, direct contact with buyers, organisation of buyers’ visits and coffee quality control. Associated businesses include enterprises aimed at the local market, such as tourist projects selling coffee tours, being the tour guide, and selling souvenirs and food. The other type of business is to roast, pack, and sell micro-lots for the national specialty coffee market.
- Transformative process of self-awareness Allowed them to critically reflect on the limitations women face in the CVC and the ways women challenge gender roles in the Los Santos coffee economy Micro-mills have impacted women’s lives in terms of agency, ownership of resources and self-awareness of their roles and their capabilities within the coffee economy.