AGUA PRIETA

I recently ventured across the border into Mexico, for the first time in my life. We, (me and my friends, Amanda ‘the slothful e-mail returner’ Shauger and the oh so feisty, Cactus Cathy, both of whom have shows on KXCI Community Radio Station, 91.3 FM, easily the best radio station in Tucson, http://www.kxci.org/ ), crossed by car, only had to show documents on re-entering the States and were not searched.

Not having to pay a bribe to some seedy, Citane-smoking, (http://www.10-minute-plays.com/comedies/10000_cigarettes.html) border immigration official, holed up in an odorous wooden hut, was a result in my book.

The part of the southern Arizona-Mexico border that we travelled through separates the towns of Douglas, in the US, and Agua Prieta, a fast-growing city of some 110,000 people. The contrast is immense. Douglas is full of manicured, fountain-laden lawns, tree-lined boulevards, grandiose, stucco -fronted theatres, imposing, neo-colonial public buildings and exquisitely finished, picture postcard, hotels. Outside of the prime, town center location, Agua Prieta is a dense, sprawling, nondescript, urban wasteland. The roads are dusty and largely unpaved and the buildings are hastily thrown up shells, devoid of all embellishment.

But I liked it immediately. It felt sleepy and laid back. As we cruised through the back streets, we passed building sites galore, stray dogs and smiling kids on bicycles. Our first port of call was a Community Center run by a gentle guy called Jose. There were carpentry and clothing workshops and a computer training room. The mural on the outside wall was stunning (see below). We visited Jose’s house, met his charming wife, dogs and hens – or were they chickens? I’m a city boy from London. What the hell do I know? - and saw his son’s hearse. Apparently, the boy wanted something with plenty of room for him and his mates to cruise around in. Far too morbid for me, but each to their own.

Our next port of call, and the highlight of the trip, was Just Coffee, a cooperative of coffee-growing families from Chiapas, the State in the deep south of Mexico, where Commandante Marcos and the Zapatistas, my all time heroes, are from. The web site is: http://www.justcoffee.org/

The business got started 4 years ago by way of a $20,000, micro-credit, loan from Frontera de Cristo, a Presbyterian border ministry. There are 35 families (which employ 9 additional Mexican staff) in the co-op, many of them belonging to the Cifuentes clan. They are small landowners who produce organic, shade-grown coffee in their village of Salvador Urbina. The green coffee beans are sent to the factory in Agua Prieta, where they are roasted, packaged and dispatched to markets in the U.S. The whole operation is kept in-house, thereby cutting out the middlemen (known as coyotes, as are the ruthless smugglers who escort migrants across the US-Mexico border), who buy up coffee beans for big corporations. Consequently, the Co-op members can earn up to 10 times more.

Large coffee companies keep prices low and most growers are forced to sell to the coyotes for between 40 and 60 cents a pound. Fair Trade companies pay the growers between $1.25 and $1.50 a pound, whereas Just Coffee makes a profit of $5 or $6 a pound. In its first year, the co-op sold 13,000 pounds of coffee. This has risen exponentially and, in 2007, the target is 80,000 pounds. At $8 a bag retail, this would amount to a turnover of $640,000.

The positive impact of this success back in Salvador Urbina is heartwarming. The community has been able to buy a water filtration system, school books and family health insurance for the very first time.

The Co-op’s market in the States consists primarily of 26 churches in Tucson, in southern Arizona, which sell the product to their congregations. 15% of sales are via the internet and, in addition, the Community Food Bank in Tucson sells it in their retail store. The prospects are even brighter as the brand looks likely to be classified as organic by the U.S Department of Agriculture and it is going to be sold in Catholic parishes nationwide.

What is so marvellous about the whole concept is that it is the perfect antidote to forced migration to the United States. The families can stay at home, together, earn a just wage and avoid risking their lives in the desert en route to the U.S. If the U.S government invested even 10% of the $2.2 billion dollars it is proposing to spend on the border fence between the U.S and Mexico, the benefits would be huge. Oh for some enlightened rulers!

Before I sign off, a few words about Micro credit. What a brilliant concept it is. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Bangladeshi, Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank, champions of micro-credit to the poor. There is no better way of enabling people to break out of poverty. Micro-credit provides low-interest loans which do not require collateral. Loans of as little as $50 up to several hundred dollars enable the poorest of the poor to set up their own self-employment projects. It is funded by donations, social-investment funds and grants and particularly targets women.

As we waited patiently in the long line of vehicles at the border check-point, waiting to cross back into the land of the free (cue: deep, throaty exhalation) it felt like we were in a scene from a David Lynch film. Squeegee merchants, amputee beggars, mini-skirted women and assorted dudes, all made their presence felt.

We had lunch in Bisbee, a wonderful old mining town which, in the early part of the 20th Century, produced 3 million ounces of gold and more than 8 billion pounds of copper, as well as silver, lead and zinc. It was the biggest city between St Louis and San Francisco. By the 1970’s, the demise of large mining operations altered the complexion of the place completely. Miners left and were replaced by bohemian, artistic types.

We visited Bisbee's local community radio station, KBRP, Radio Free Bisbee, also affectionately known as the 'voice of the mule mountains' (which are located in the Chihuahuan desert). Their web site is: http://www.kbrpradio.com/ Thank you to Harry Wolters, one of the Director's, who took time out to show us the equipment and explain how it all worked. KBRP, a low power, non-commercial, educational station, has been on the air since November 2004.

Harry explained to us that onerous new regulations with regard to indecency, introduced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), pose a real threat to community and other independent radio stations. In the early 2000's, the FCC began stepping up censorship and enforcement of indecency regulations. In November 2006, in keeping with the puritanical strand within the neocon regime, Bush signed into law the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act. This increased tenfold, to $325,000, the fine for breaching decency standards. There is no warning given. One strike and you are out.

The FCC's defintion of indecency is: 'Language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities or organs.' Talk about walking on egg shells!

Here are some of the photos I took. Cathy, Jose and Amanda followed by Jose, Cathy and me:

















Bisbee and 2 boys on a bike-you'd never have guessed!



























Another shot of Bisbee:











The mural outside Jose's workshop:



Hugo Cifuentes, 19, who operates the roasting machine. It cost $30,000 and can roast 40 pounds of coffee in 10 to 12 minutes plus Jose's son's hearse:















My principal source for this post was an article by Margaret Regan in the Tucson Weekly of February 8th 2007, entitled 'Roasting Revolution'.