Chiapas in Mexico produces one of the best coffees in the world, mainly grown in the mountains. Coffee is Mexico’s main export. Mexico is in fact the world’s fourth largest producer of coffee in the world, and the main producer of organic coffee.
In Mexico more than 3 million people depend on the production of coffee and on its exportation. 91.7% are small producers with less than five hectares of land, and more than 60% of these are indigenous peoples. The other 8.3% own a number of enormously extended estates that are the fruits of occupations of indigenous lands; these occupations have been promoted and supported by the government.
The EZLN commonly known as the Zapatistas has developed social and political projects: building, from the bottom up, a society where the Maya people can enjoy autonomy, safeguarding their own idioms and culture, and organising their own access to education, health, and land, through forms of direct democracy.
One of these projects is the creation of small cooperatives that produce the “Cafe Rebelde” or “Zapatista coffee”. The organisation of these cooperatives has strengthened and improved access to the land and the quality of life overall.
Where appropriate Veggies therefore uses and sells Zapatista coffee that we get from Active Distribution, who in turn buy it from Café Libertad in Hamburg. Café Libertad deal directly with the cooperatives in Mexico, as an act of solidarity with the indigenous peoples struggle in Chiapas Mexico and also because it tastes so damn good!
You can buy 250g bags of ground Zapatista coffee or 500g beans from Veggies at the Sumac Centre, and many good events , or buy stuff by mail order.