To Ecuador, With Love

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Though the workers are still poor and most lack significant formal education, being employed and treated well has empowered them. Many of the company leaders are women, and they speak forcefully about how conditions on these farms are vastly superior to those on other farms where they have worked. During worker meetings at each farm, participants often praise their bosses for respecting them, but they don’t hesitate to cite problems or offer advice. There is often more spirited talk between boss and subordinate than you’d see in a typical U.S. workplace.

The farm owners, like Diego Espinosa at Agrocoex and Alvaro Espinosa Chiriboga at Agroganadera, are forthcoming about the annoyances and costs of meeting certification standards, including some resentment over being told by foreigners how to behave. And they express reservations about whether fair trade programs will ever completely transform their industry.

Chiriboga walks through the packing area, joking with his workers and talking about paying extra benefits and vacation. “To me, this is not a cost, it’s an investment,” he says. “Is fair trade going to be the next big thing? I really don’t think it will. A percentage of the growers will accept this, but not all of them. Right now, I just don’t think there’s the market.”

The TransFair USA certification process is the most rigorous, says Chiriboga, who has also been certified by organic groups and European programs. He describes the last inspection, when three people spent three 12-hour days inspecting the farm.

“The fair trade program focuses on the people,” he says. “It’s the best label because it’s the most demanding and is starting to create a market. But the thing that’s also very important in fair trade is quality. You have to have quality first or it won’t sell.”

Despite Chiriboga’s caution, the rewards for the workers are evident. In a small cement building at the Agrocoex farm, five young workers are learning to use Microsoft Word. In the past four years, 80 percent of the workers have taken computer classes.

“We think it’s very important to teach first the workers, then their children, how to use computers,” says Chiriboga. “I cannot imagine nowadays that you can live without knowing how to use a computer.”

In the next room, Sabina Sopalo is taking advantage of the social premium, but it doesn’t look pleasant.

Sopalo is having her teeth drilled by Dr. Javier Moles, who today wears a shirt with little teeth on it. Dental care is sparse in rural Ecuador, says Moles. Few people have insurance coverage, and a visit could cost at least a week’s pay. So when the workers at Agrocoex got one of their first payments from the sale of Fair Trade Certified flowers, they hired a company dentist. Sopalo’s visit will cost her between 20 and 90 cents.

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