Yolanda Dominguez Yescas - Transparency

Farmer: Yolanda Dominguez Yescas
# of exportable bags: 2x69kg
Export partner: Azahar Coffee

For the second year in a row, we are happy to be able to offer you the fruit of Yolanda's hard work.
Last year, she could produce only one bag of exportable coffee, but with some community lead training, Azahar's support and Rabbit Hole's dedication to paying higher prices, she could produce 2 bags fit for export. The renewing of older plants on her farm lead to a 25% increase in yield.

We are buying this coffee while using the Sustainable Coffee Buyer's Guide* metrics and research.
The SCBG tiers explained:

  • poverty wage: the price paid for a coffee that would leave farmers living in poverty in that region
  • legal wage: farmers paid according to the minimum salary imposed by the government
  • living wage: a wage that allows the farmers to live well with all their family while also paying farm workers a living wage
  • prosperous wage: this is the same as the living income but with an extra 20% paid to the farmers family for personal savings + another 20% paid for reinvestment in the farm

The price we paid last year amounted to a living wage for Josefina, but due to rapidly increasing costs (24% increased cost of production vs last year), this year our payment fell between legal and living wage.

Price we paid to Josefina (farmgate): 415MXN per parchment of coffee.
Local price average: 50MXN
We paid 8 times the market price, but as we already explained, this is not merely enough to reach the living price range this harvest.

Here is the general situation of what is required for each tier in the Sierra Norte region of Oaxaca this harvest:

• Poverty Price: 300 MXN
• Legal Price: 370 MXN
• Living Price: 610 MXN
• Prosperity Price: 1310 MXN

Despite rising costs and challenges, Josefina is steadfast in her commitment to maintain her farm, and despite only breaking even last year with the sales of her coffee, we will continue to support her as best as we can.

One challenge we have as roasters is tied to the overall way coffee is priced in the specialty industry and the remoteness of her farm.
Coffee is tied to the local market price and the C-Price, and paying above it is usually a premise for most specialty coffee buyers. But paying eight times more means that it's hard for us to compete with roasters buying the same kind of quality in Mexico, and this coffee will look massively overpriced on our menu even though we should have paid more for it.
Lastly, the remoteness of her means an increase cost for almost everything. As an example, if we were buying coffee in more accessible region within Oaxaca or Chiapas, the 415MXN we paid would have been well above the living price and not so far off the prosperity price.

Price we paid for the landed coffee at our roastery: 62,50CAD/kg

This ~20CAD differential between the farmgate price and the landed coffee covers:

  • the transport from the remote mountains of the Sierra Norte in Oaxaca to Oaxaca city
  • Azahar on the ground work and export fees
  • Import, financing and storage fees
  • Shipping and customs from the USA to our roastery

 * Those numbers were gathered by the non profit A Sustainable Coffee Buyer's Guide while doing cost of production analysis and farmer interviews for the past 4 years.

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