Meet your Farmers

Due to a tough winter, the coop that Ladislao is a part of, lost 50% of their harvest. They now have 15,000 coffee seedlings in their nursery which means they have now produced almost 100,000 seedlings total so far. They were delivering seedlings last Tuesday on a very steep hill when the truck shut off and they lost control, the truck ended up rolling off a hill and thankfully got caught by a tree but not before serious damage to the truck and still some unknown physical damage to Lamberto (a coop member delivering coffee). He still is in the hospital. The nursery program has been very successful in this town, which is 8 hrs from the nearest paid road and has little to no gov't aid or any outside aid.

Much work has been done by Growers First to help this town help themselves and they are doing an incredibly good job especially when compared to the lower towns which have access to welfare and other gov't aid. 

Ladislao is finishing up the cleaning of his farm in LindaVista San Miguel Lachiguiri right now. The crop looks good and some of the coffee that they pruned and new coffee trees they planted are starting to come into production now. His Pablo, who is now married and has a son, will be taking over a small parcel of the farm. Ladislao's relatives will be walking up to the remote farm in the hills in December and live their for 2 months to help out harvesting and processing all the coffee.

Nelson have received several training sessions in micro financing, a huge step towards economic sustainability. When congratulations were offered, Nelson stood tall and declared that his best and most rewarding gain this past season was the vacation school that his coop help arrange for his children (along with another 150 kids) in his village of Los Lagunos.  We hope to have pictures of the school very soon. But knowing that the values in this village are always towards the betterment of their children is just one of the reasons we work with remote farmers like Nelson.

Not long ago Rito and his teen age daughter started a vegetable nursery for dark green vegetables.  Rito had learned that his wife and daughter as well as most of the other women in  his village suffer with iron deficiency.  So with the encouragement of the leaders of his Coffee coop, he insisted that his solar drying house be used as a vegetable green house when coffee drying season  finished.  What a great idea Rito!  Not only does the new emphasis on iron rich food make great sense, it offers several young ladies the opportunity to raise a crop that will find not only personal use, but a local market which helps to diversify potential income. Pictures should be forth coming soon!

Every 3 years, the UPCTIZ Co-op holds elections to bring in new leadership. They placed the 3 year term limit into their by-laws to allow other Co-op members the chance to step up and have an impact in the future of the communities that they serve.

During these past years, Ladislao Solano has served as President with passion, commitment and an energy level that has prompted the Co-op to grow to it's current membership of 400 farming families.

On Wednesday, May 30th 2012 the Co-op held those elections and Wenseslao Jarquin was voted in as the newest UPCTIZ President.

The Growers First Foundation is very excited in continuing it's work along side this new leadership. Wenseslao adds very unique and timely abilities that we feel will elevate the entire region to a greater level of confidence and unity that they have built over the last three years.

Wenseslao, who is of the Mixe people group, is married to a Zapotec women and speaks both the Zapotec and Mixe languages very fluently. This unique skill set has already proven to add an increased level of trust in the communication toward the current and future direction of the Co-op.

Along with Wenseslao becoming the new President, 3 other new members have been added into the cabinet of leaders. 

Patricio Valerio is now the Treasurer.

Inocencio Pedro is acting as an overseer and advisor of the new leadership team.

Saul Valdivia has now taken on the responsibilities of Secretary.