NEW SCOTLAND – Beltran Masias has lived his entire life in a coffee-growing community in San Fernando, Peru. Things have changed over the years, he said.

Last week, Masias visited Indian Ladder Farms in New Scotland, which sells the fair-trade coffee that he helps to grow and produce.

He was accompanied by Eulalia Valdez Palomino, who works with women’s groups within the COCLA cooperative (Agrarian Coffee Cooperative, Ltd.) to which Masias belongs, and Lynsey Miller, a food-service sales manager for the fair-trade company, Equal Exchange, based in West Bridgewater, Mass. Miller was their driver and interpreter. From Indian Ladder, the trio was headed to Ithaca and later to Philadelphia.

Ann Kelly, the coordinator for educational programming and a buyer for Indian Ladder Farms, greeted the group warmly and showed them around the farm. Indian Ladder sells not only fair-trade coffee, but also chocolate, tea, and bananas, she told The Enterprise, adding that the local foods that are sold there are "presumably fair trade."

Fair trade helps farmers and farm workers rise above poverty by investing in their farms and communities, and ensuring they receive a fair price for their goods.
"Everybody wins with it," Kelly said of fair trade. At Indian Ladder Farms, she said, "We believe it’s important to support farmers in other places."

The cooperative didn’t exist when Masias was growing up, he said. It formed on May 15, 1994 as a committee. It formally became a cooperative on Oct. 22, 2001, he said.
Being part of the cooperative, "We’re able to sell coffee at a higher price, and our children can go to school," he said through Miller. All of his children are in school, he said with a smile.

The cooperative has also enabled the growers to improve the quality of the coffee, he said.

When the Spanish came to Peru, Masias explained, it caused a shift where Spaniards became the owners of the farms and the Peruvians were laborers. At that time, he said, only Spanish children could go to school.
Between 1968 and 1972, there was a "rebellion" that began in Cusco, in southeastern Peru; Peruvians rose up to take ownership of the land, Masias said.

During the uprising, villagers were killed and women were raped, he said. Until a few months ago, people were still imprisoned from this time, he said. The movement affected not only villagers and farmers, but the entire community, said Masias.

To take over the land, syndicates, similar to unions, were formed, and cooperatives were born, he said.
"Coffee had existed for a long time, but not cooperatives," he said. The cooperatives allowed the growers to continue to cultivate coffee, he said. "The change was radical and excellent," said Masias.

Before the cooperative formed, the farmers were trading, but weren’t making money, he said. Now, the coffee farmers are the owners and members of the cooperative, he said.

From January through March, a general assembly meets to make decisions for the upcoming year, Masias explained. Through democratic elections, the assembly elects a group of administrators who carry out the decisions, he said. A committee is elected to ensure that everything runs properly, he said.

Masias’s cooperative has 426 members. There are 23 similar communities, representing 8,500 families that make up the COCLA association. Palomino works in a company that coordinates all of the communities.
Being part of the cooperative is a "whole family affair," said Palomino. "Both men and women participate in the whole process, as well as the children," she said.

Within a farming family, there are different roles, said Palomino.

Women are an integral part of the structure, she said. The women tend to work longer hours and participate in more labor-intensive jobs, she said. Men do the planting and harvesting. For example, she said, when the coffee is first planted, the men put the seeds in the ground. The women do the weeding and maintain the plants, she said.

The majority of the coffee grown through the COCLA cooperative is exported to the United States, said Palomino. It also exports to Canada, Germany, Japan, and England, she said.

Masias said he has been drinking coffee ever since he can remember. He drinks coffee every day from dawn until dusk, he said. In order to go out and harvest the coffee, he said, he brings a thermos of coffee to drink.