To Ecuador, With Love

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The next day, at another farm, we take a side trip to Agroganadera’s child care facility, a squat building painted with bright pictures of dancing bears and Bambi. The Hoja Verde day care center looks after 55 of the workers’ kids, ages 3 to 5. It’s immaculate, and free.

One of the women we noticed earlier at the farm, Evelyn Aracely Vinueza Reascos, is here, wearing a vest with a picture of a stork on it. That means she’s pregnant, and coworkers know she cannot enter a facility where toxins are present, or lift heavy weights. Her work days will shorten as the due date nears. And she will get paid maternity leave.

At Agroganadera, they’ve used their social premium to begin an English language program for children, buy pigs for either consumption or breeding, and start a propane hot water program that has saved workers thousands of dollars.

David Galo Rivera Rodriguez is a shy kid with a quick smile. He moved from the coast to live with his uncle and work on the rose farm because he got a scholarship to attend a good school. The company provided him with six years of schooling, and he’s now going to university to study English and German.

The changes didn’t come without resistance, from both owners and employees.

Chiriboga says the social requirements “were a real shock because we weren’t prepared for that. Originally there was a lot of training of employees and a lot of workers were resisting it. Some were scared by the process because it made you take responsibility.”

The process was slow, he says: “It looked like the social premiums were never going to get here. Once we saw the projects taking place, we began to realize the investment of time and money was well worth it.”

Some of the workers balked at outside control of the money. All projects have to be cleared by an independent facilitator.

“At the beginning, they wanted to take the money and divide it up,” says Chiriboga. “It was difficult to convince them that they had to develop a project. People wanted to buy DVDs and stereos.”

And there are always unintended consequences. During lunch, a human resource manager tells me that the rose trade brought so many people to this rural valley that prices soared for locals. Delinquency and family problems increased.

“The good thing is, there are jobs where there were none,” he says.

Some of the fair trade farm owners are wary of criticizing their neighbors and worry that the industry could be portrayed poorly. In fact, they agree with Busch in Minneapolis that conditions have improved dramatically inside and outside fair trade farms. That may be because the working conditions pushed by fair trade have created competition for the best workers, and other farms have improved benefits to keep up.

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