Youth Blooming Agrarian Lands and Community Life
Solidarity Economies and Agroecological Coffee: The Flourishing of AgroEco’s Youth
What happens when youth lead in connecting a solidarity economy based on participation and transparency? AgroEco Coffee! A solidarity supply network for agroecological coffee created by CAN and our partners, active since 2004.
AgroEco is family farmers that produce coffee, organized into two cooperatives–the UCA San Ramon in Nicaragua and Campesinos en la Lucha Agraria/VIDA AC in Mexico. It is also youth in Mexico and Nicaragua intimately connected to each stage of coffee production from planting seedlings to harvesting quality shade-grown coffee beans. Joined by youth in California, together they are transforming beans into cups of coffee, managing work spaces and administering collective business models at three points of sale: the Cafeteria Montegrande in San Ramón, Nicaragua, the FemCafé coffee shop in Veracruz, Mexico, and the Youth Collective Coffee Stand at the Cabrillo College Farmer’s Market in California. To reach this point, youth have traveled a path full of administrative and organizational learning.
Youth are applying creativity and innovation to sell coffee, with a focus on caring for land and community. Will you support youth on their path of building out solidarity economies from South to North?
As baristas, youth engage consumers sharing the story behind each cup of coffee–the revitalization of ancestral farming practices, the decision-making power of organized communities, and the intricate web of relationships based in collective care that brings roasted beans to each cafe. In addition, youth earn income to continue their education, while firmly rooting themselves in the lands their families and communities call home. The menu at each cafe reflects their values and establishes a link with the lives of youth and their families.
At the Cafeteria Montegrande, the ingredients for the beverages and prepared meals come directly from the coffee farms and homegardens. The goal of the Cafeteria is two-fold: to promote healthy eating and awareness about the origins and quality of consumed foods, and to integrate as many farming families as possible through the sale of their honey, grains and fresh produce. You can literally taste the coffee forest in the smoothies made with fruits from the trees that provide shade for coffee.
Likewise, at the newly opened FemCafé coffee shop, youth have developed a menu that reflects the coffee growing region, with drinks such as “Lechero Pico de Orizaba” in reference to the snowy peak of Veracruz’s Orizaba Mountain. They have trained in the art of espresso drinks and pour over coffee while offering infusions made from medicinal plants that grow in the coffee forest. The coffee shop is a new space for selling medicinal plant tinctures and handicrafts, strengthening the economy of locally-produced goods.
At the Youth Collective Coffee Stand the values of a solidarity economy resonate. Youth serve coffee grown in Nicaragua and Mexico, building on a relationship of more than two decades with coffee cooperatives. The youth that run the stand are the Latinx migrant community, and know first-hand how the destruction of land-based local economies displaces farming communities from their homelands. As they work to keep the coffee stand going, their labor in marketing coffee and sharing knowledge with consumers, supports and creates local economies that uphold dignified livelihoods for rural families north and south.
Each cafe is a laboratory for solidarity economies, where youth learn about building alternative agroecological markets and directly interact with consumers, making meaningful collective decisions along the way. The strategies they develop, their accomplishments and challenges, become lessons learned shared throughout the supply network each time CAN organizes a virtual exchange to celebrate their convergence. From south to north, youth are working in solidarity to make agrarian lands and community life bloom.
Help us reach our goal of raising $100,000 before December 31st. Your donation is part of a commitment to local initiatives that uphold the autonomy and sustainability of rural communities and youth-led initiatives.
Sow seeds of hope and
resistance with your donation.
Every dollar you contribute to CAN up to $50,000 will be matched through December 31st !
