Coffee and the Countryside: Small Farmers and Sustainable Development in Las Segovias de Nicaragua
Las Segovias de Nicaragua is a highland tropical region along the Rio Coco and the Honduran border in the northern part of the country. Over the past decade and a half, efforts to introduce and establish organic coffee production methods and cooperative organization models have focused on the impoverished rural inhabitants of this region. This approach represents a significant shift in international development policies toward Third World producer nations. I engaged in this context to question the viability of organic coffee farming given the legacy of deceit, violence, and natural disasters that have plagued this region since the Spanish Conquest. The historical and cultural antecedents to this development mode inform the pace and direction in which presumably 'sustainable' innovations to this traditionally exploitative, century old coffee industry take form. I conducted ethnographic research over two years with the small scale coffee farmer community of Las Grietas within the municipality of San Juan del Rio Coco to understand how these innovations are received and embraced by the inhabitants of this