Frank Hartwich et al. / Int. J. Food System Dynamics 3 (2010) 237-251
However, producers organizations’ as well as the union’s role in providing important information to
growers about how to improve and optimize coffee production on their farms has been rather marginal. It
is through the certification vein that recently new information on how to do things better is channeled
into the system. Some organizations, such as the small growers association COMIPIL in Pa^so have been
able, with the help of development agencies, IHCAFE and buyers to improve their operations. However, it
is estimated that 85% of the total number of producers belong to associations such as AHPROCAFE and
ANACAFEH, the benefits they receive from them is marginal and, when it comes to inducing innovation,
inexistent.
3.6 Financing institutions-led trajectory
There are a number of public and private banks and financing institutions, such as BANADESA and
BANHCAFE, who provide farmers with credits. Rather excessive in terms of the requirements of
documentation and collateral, it is only a small part of coffee growers who can access these sources of
financing. In cases that growers achieve to get a loan with these institutions, usually at much better
conditions as with the beneficio, they do not, however, get any information on best practices in farm
management. Even if the financing institutions evaluate the capacity of payment on the basis of coffee
operations, work which is usually done by officials who know the sector well, the banks restrict
completely from giving advice on how to improve operations. At the end, most farmers rely on informal
credits provided by the beneficios. But the growing of coffee, and more so any improvement and
intensification in coffee growing requires funding. This is also particularly true under conditions of
certification. As sources of funding outside the beneficio scheme are scarce, many growers remain with
few sources of information on improving their production.
Out of the six innovation trajectories discussed above, four of them are dominated by the private sector:
Innovation through local buyers, international buyers/exporters, input suppliers and financing
institutions. However, it is important to stress that it is not private sector agents alone which bring about
the innovation in the trajectory. For example, IHCAFE is engaged in most of the private and publicly
dominated innovation trajectories. As described, it is the combination of various private, public, non-
governmental and local agents which make the innovations occur.
4 Innovation and communication in three coffee growing communities
After showing how, in general, new knowledge and technology in coffee production can reach growers via
different innovation trajectories, the study went on to derive empirical evidence on how various agents
engaged in these trajectories influence innovation behavior among growers in three coffee-producing
communities in Honduras. In particular, answers to the question of how access to certain innovation
trajectories and the dynamics of local information exchange between producers and external agents
(those which lead innovation trajectories such as coffee buyers, farm input providers and governmental
and international development agencies) influence the use of improved coffee production methods
among small coffee producers in Honduras were sought. Data collection for this study was carried out
from December 2009 to February 2010.
4.1 Three typical coffee producing communities: El Pacon, Las Crucitas and San Marcos de Colon
In the following section, the situation in the three communities studied is briefly described. The first
community, el Pacon, lies in the department of El Pa^so in the southern region of Honduras. Although
this department has the largest number of producers in Honduras (approximately 15,000 or 17% of the
total), the yields obtained are lower than the national average. The majority of the producers are small-
scale, having a cultivated area of a hectare or less. The community is located 30 kilometers from the
closest town. It is characterized by a clear divide between large producers and small producers: Three
large producers account for more hectares of coffee plantations then all the rest of the 25 small-
producers. The small producers, with the help of development assistance, have formed a farmers’
organization, the Cooperativa de Innovation (COMIPIL). As part of the cooperative, a women group
engages in efforts to process and market coffee. The quality of the coffee produced in El Pacon is
considerable; in a latest nationwide quality contest in the frame of the “cup of excellence” initiative, a
coffee from El Pacon ranked third. This has attracted local buyers and exporters to seek buying coffee
from the community. Meanwhile a number of development projects with the participation of IHCAFE,
ICADE, FUNDER and CATIE have been providing technical assistance with regard to agronomic and
production maters, organizational development, business administration and marketing. Producers in El
Pacon produced on average land sizes of and the average yield is 9 sacks per manzana (about 7,000m2).
Three out of the 25 producers in El Pacon sold all of their production directly to exporters and 5 of them
sold a fraction of their production, roughly 40% on average, through producer unions or cooperativas.
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