A day in the life of a CONACADO cocoa farmer:
Beato Guillermo de la Gues is currently president of one of the organisations that make up the CONACADO Association. He gets up at 6 A.M., has a coffee and breakfast of banana and yams. It’s a two hour uphill walk from his house to the finca (about 8-10 kilometres). He says he arrives covered in sweat! His main tasks are weeding with a machete, pruning, fertilising and harvesting. He is bitten by flies and surrounded by mountains.
“I like being in the countryside because your mind is clear. You feel free, away from all pressures. You feel very lucid.”
For lunch, he builds a fire and cooks rice, meat and salad. He goes home about 4 pm, and rests and watches television till he goes to bed at about 11pm, always later than his wife.
Normally he works alone, except when he has temporary workers there. He spends some days of the week working at the office of CONACADO, for which he gets paid a daily rate. In his spare time, he really likes going to the local river – not to fish, just to swim and rest.
“Through the Fairtrade premium we have established a nursery so we can sell young plants to farmers at a low cost. This provides both an alternative course of nutrition and income to our farmers”
find out how premiums from Cafédirect have been used by CONACADO