Visit to El Ceibo, Bolivia, May 2010

La Paz – the city of the naked houses

I find myself wondering if it is a tax on finished buildings or just poverty that prevents Bolivians from cladding their brick dwellings… the mass of red brick buildings jammed into the valley of La Paz gives the appearance of a city of ancient ruins.

Travelling through the city past the commercial centre, looking very much like any other, one comes to South La Paz which resembles the desert landscape and vulgar wealth of Los Vegas where the same red brick buildings have fancy cladding and the red double decker tourist bus proudly claims the resurgence of the economy due to neo-liberal policies imposed on the country in the 80s. I wonder what the red bus says about the area I’m staying in next to the ‘marche negro’ and the witches market where Cholitas beg with babies on the broken cobbled streets.

La Paz, because of its resurging indigenous culture and perhaps because of its poverty, is a place full of character making the poverty easy to romanticise. I don’t have photos because the Cholitas have likely been scarred by too many tourists and appear to despise having their photo taken, but I will retain memories of the shiny cobbled streets that have nearly sent me flying several times in my grip-less shoes. Streets bordered by stalls selling alpaca fetuses and socks, jewellery and beautiful paintings.

If I spoke Spanish I would talk to the locals about life in Bolivia. I’m fascinated by Evo Morales who cut his income by 57% when he took the job as President in 2005. He’s an ex-coca farmer working for equality of the indigenous populations who make up the 60% of the population who haven’t necessarily benefited from Bolivia’s liberalisation policies. Competition from cheaper imports from surrounding countries (all wealthier than Bolivia), have taken their toll on the indigenous tribes who make up a large percentage of the rural farmers.

A large percentage of these farmers migrated from the highlands down to the Alto Plano in the 70’s drawn by promises by the government to provide incentives for migration to an area they saw as more fit for agricultural and economic development than the hostile highlands. It took until the 90’s for the government to fulfil its promises and despite some improvement the area is lacking some of the more essential services such as good roads, access to health care and secondary schools.

El Ceibo, the group I came to meet, formed in 1977 in a bid to provide an income that rivalled coca production and a livelihood that would prove better for the environment and for the social development of the indigenous populations. I think they’ve done a good job (an expert opinion gained from talking to 4 people for 2 hours!) and I liked the El Ceibo staff I met and their values. I’m disappointed to have not been able to visit any of the farmers during my stay to hear from them about their changed circumstances and opportunities. My stay coincided with strikes led by fruit farmers against the government who’d promised them a processing facility and roads were closed as a result. This meant I didn’t get into the area and two of the people I met with today had had to leave vehicles and luggage and walk out of town presumably to pick up transport further down the road rather than walking back to La Paz via the ‘World’s most dangerous road’ – A road I was looking forward to taking and in hindsight should have traded the ‘Las Vegas’ city bus tour for the mountain biking tour that sends you down the death road!

My meeting was with two El Ceibo members Ramiro Garcia the export manager and Bernardo Apaza the Gerente Comercial, and Chloe (chocolate extraordinaire) and Ignacio Trepp who works for a Foundacion called Nuevonorte. Ignacio is provided as a full time staff member to help El Ceibo in their operations - a result of wealthy business men from La Paz providing funding for various industries in and around La Paz with a view to the economic development of the area. This information made me feel a bit kinder towards the inhabitants of Vegas…

Chocolate prices appear to work in the same way as coffee prices and three to four years ago the cocoa price dropped to US1200 – 1500 per tonne. This is below the fair trade minimum of 1950 (included in this is 150 FLO premium and 200 organic payment) and at this time the fair trade price was invaluable for farmers. Recently however the price has been known to have risen to 4000 per tonne so the additional price of 350 on top of this doesn’t have the same impact. This for me indicates how invaluable fair trade practises are for farmers at the mercy of international commodity markets.

El Ceibo work within and outside of the fair trade system. The majority of their 49 cooperatives are FLO certified and 90% are organic certified. So when I asked if 100% of how they work is based on fair trade principles they replied in a slight rephrase of my question answering that they work to a true cooperative model. They gave the example of how El Ceibo members rotate roles through the cooperative – from a desk job in management at the central office in El Alto La Paz one year to tending the fields the following – and everyone from the cleaners and chocolate retail assistants are from the member base of 1300 families (49 cooperatives). Between 40 and 50% of profits are returned to members to be spent how the cooperatives see fit and El Ceibo spend a substantial amount more than the FLO premiums on community projects, the list of which are as long as a long man’s arm. El Ceibo are proud that they are able to help those outside of their coop members with services and are a little scathing that FLO premiums can only be spent on the Fairtrade farmers. Community benefits include additional payments to farmers for health care, emergency funds for unforeseen health problems, retirement funds for farmers once they turn 60 and agro forestry projects encouraging farmers to bio diversify providing the both seeds and technical assistance. These were the projects El Ceibo told me about today but I noticed that Alto Eco who also buy from El Ceibo have a much longer list of community projects on their website.

El Ceibo provide vital technical assistance too. Cocoa saplings for members are provided from a nursery they maintain at Sapecho where they determine the best quality and best suited varieties for the different regions. Over the last few years cooperative members have moved from cultivating two hectares of cocoa to five hectares, most still have more land than this but use it for other subsistence crops and one would presume coca. El Ceibo say they want to both increase the amount they buy from farmers as well as bring new farmers into the system but it sounds like most farmers still have the ability to put more of their land into cocoa for the time being and it doesn’t appear that the number of members has increased in the last few years.
Although most of their cooperatives are FLO certified they also buy from individual farmers scattered around Alto Beni who cannot logistically form any type of structure that FLO will certify. El Ceibo finds this hard to reconcile as they work on a principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of religion, culture and gender, through (obviously) to location and ability to form cooperatives. For certification reasons, El Ceibo keeps this produce separate once they have traveled out by motorbike to pick it up from these remote locations and I imagine it is used in their domestic chocolate production which in 2010 makes up more than 45% of sales, up from 25% in 2007.

Currently Trade Aid buys organic chocolate bars from Claro, a Swiss fair trade organisation who buy their raw materials from El Ceibo.