STiR coffee and tea magazine

40 STiR coffee and tea | 2023 Issue 2 (April / May) Rough ride "The past decade has been a rollercoaster in coffee production, with many up and downs. But the downs seem to be overtaking the ups in frequency," Mierisch states. When political turmoil struck in 2018, it soon affected coffee producers. "With the crisis in 2018, banks did not give loans for quite some time," says Günkel of ACEN. "They feared the system would collapse, not only the government but also the economy." Even after loans were approved, banks did not pay funds through to farmers, who then lacked money to pay workers and buy inputs. Pests and plant diseases hit many farms. Productivity declined, and many farms closed. In 2019 came a tax reform that imposed a tariff on all production goods, further hindering the sector. Then Covid-19 struck. Logistics and shipping stumbled. Costs for freight and inputs rose by about 200%, according to Günkel. After Covid retreated, Russia's invaded Ukraine, which created a new problem because Nicaragua depends on Russian fertilizers. This input became difficult to source and expensive again. One consequence of turmoil has been low investment in farm productiv- ity. According to the USDA, only 14% of total coffee planting area has been replanted since 2014, considered far too low. Nicaraguan farms have endured instability before. The civil war that struck the country in the 1980s had a big impact on coffee production. Farms, mills, and exporters were taken over by the government. But in 1990 they were privatized, and in the decade that followed coffee co- operatives gradually took over. In recent years, small and medium-size exporters have gained traction. These include Sajonia Coffee Estate and Fincas Mierisch. Now, however, big players are moving in. "The competition among large exporters, such as Olam [now Ofi] and Caravela, for example, which took over local companies like Cisa and Atlantic, along with the cooperatives in the last decade, has affected us medium and also smaller exporters, because it is hard to compete with them," Mierisch says. Yet competition among buyers helps producers by supporting prices. And international traders are helping drive the focus on specialty coffee, a segment that has benefitted from steady demand and good prices even in tough times. Steady high prices are needed to keep Nicaraguans farming coffee. With all the difficulties in recent years, many are discouraged and opt for other crops, says Günkel. Many young Nicas have been leaving the country to seek brighter futures in the United States or elsewhere. Savvy mills like Sajonia Estate have doubled down on specialty coffee during the past five years, and many now service microlots. Farmers are supplying fine beans. "You see many new and experienced pro- ducers experimenting with, and successfully replicating, new post-harvest types of fermen- tations and drying techniques," says Erwin Mierisch III, a fifth-generation coffee producer, and head of Fincas Mierisch, a group of farms. "Gone are the days of just three types of post- harvest processing. You're also seeing more new varieties being planted by producers, such as Sidra, SL-28, and Geisha." "Nicaraguans are very curious people, and we're always eager to keep learning, implementing, and experimenting with new methods in search of bet- ter quality," says Mierisch, great-great grandson of Bruno Mierisch, a German immigrant who began the family's farm in 1908 in Matagalpa. "It's a difficult time to be a coffee producer in Nicaragua, or most producing countries really, but we're very resilient and hard-working people. Some might say we're stubborn. We see problems as ob- stacles waiting to be overcome," Mierisch says. Manfred Günkel, vice president of the Nicaraguan Specialty Coffee Association and CEO of Sajonia Estate Coffee, says viable prices are essential to keep people farming. Melanie Böhme

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