Use and perceptions of alternative economic activities among smallholder coffee farmers in Huehuetenango and El Quiché departments in Guatemala

ABSTRACT

In the past two decades, Mesoamerican smallholder coffee farmers have had to confront several stressors and shocks, such as price crises and natural disasters, with debilitating impacts on the viability of their livelihoods. More recently, many farmers have suffered crop losses in the wake of the spread of coffee leaf rust disease, and researchers are predicting that some areas will become less suitable for coffee growing in the near future as a result of climate change. For these reasons, many have called for the promotion of livelihood diversification as an additional component of rural development programs. This study uses thematic analysis of transcripts from 15 interviews with members of a regional Guatemalan coffee cooperative, Asociación Barillense de Agricultores, based on four different interview guides. Coffee remains the primary livelihood strategy of the respondents, whereas most other activities appear to offer relatively small contributions to incomes, with the exception of honey and a small sewing shop. Some of the farmer responses reflect coping mechanisms rather than risk management. The study also identified other themes mediating diversification, including income-smoothing, optimization, familiarity, social networks, and influences from external actors.

KEYWORDS:

• Rural livelihoods
• diversification
• smallholder farmers
• coffee

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our reviewers for their helpful comments regarding the content and structure of this article. We also want to acknowledge the producers and the staff at ASOBAGRI who participated in and facilitated this research, and our colleague and research partner, Dana Christel, who worked alongside Andrew in the field.

Notes

1. According to him, coffee production in the 1980s (when he began producing) provided three times the income that it currently offered. He attributed the local rates of international migration to the declining value of the crop, including the migration of his son, who was serving a prison sentence in the United States.

2. Of the three respondents who did not grow cardamom, two were located near Chajul, where cardamom production is not prevalent, probably due to cooler growing conditions.

3. These two respondents were situated in areas where corn production dominated the landscape, very unlike the landscape in which other respondents were situated.

4. One extension agent for the cooperative estimated that his family’s store netted 10% profit over its costs and the volume sold was low.

5. Bee-keeping in general was more common in this respondent’s region (near Chajul) than in the other sites in this study. His entry into honey was fostered through a development project that had selected a local farmers’ association as a participant.

Additional information

Funding

We are grateful for the financial support from the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and for the opportunity created by the Agroecology and Rural Livelihoods Group at the University of Vermont.