competing with local intermediaries, or the costs are subsidized by projects, which implies discontinuity in the offer of key services and expenses in donor reporting and project acquisition. At the international level, a major source of concern for Nicaraguan cooperatives that export certified organic coffee is uncertainty in regulatory frameworks for accreditation of certification agencies. Recently two issues have emerged, each with major implications for how cooperatives produce and market organic coffee. The first relates to group certification, which makes certification accessible to producers in the South by reducing the costs of annual inspection. 7 In 2007 National Organic Program (NOP) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) declared that it would now enforce the regulatory requirements that all members of a grower group (cooperative) be inspected, in response to noncompliance by a Mexican cooperative. (The rule has been existence since the NOP was launched in 2002, but not enforced). As a result, the practice of internal inspection, combined with a small percentage of third-party external inspections, would be evaluated as noncompliant with the USDA. In response to protests by NGOs and other actors in the organic sector, the USDA relinquished; however, the rule still exists and no formal declaration has been announced regarding its future enforcement. The other issue relates to the use of poultry-manure-based fertilizers for the production of organic coffee. Until recently, the use of such fertilizers was approved by one of the two major organic-certification agencies in Nicaragua, Biolatina, but not approved by the other agency, OCIA. These fertilizers represent one of the few available economically viable options for providing nitrogen to organic coffee plantations. However, in 2008, Biolatina announced that it would no longer certify production practices that utilized poultry-manure based fertilizers. It is unclear the exact reason behind the decision, but most likely it is an attempt to respond to stricter organic regulation in Europe, which prohibits the use of animal material from livestock on factory farms. This has major implications for the organic coffee producers of Soppexcca, as no other source of nitrogen has been as efficient and effective as these fertilizers. Interventions for promoting fair trade and organic coffee: case of Soppexcca Small-scale coffee producers have made the transition to organic farming with assistance from cooperatives and development projects. Interventions have helped producers become certified by providing training and financing, organizing producers in cooperatives, making low-cost credit available, and finding markets for organically certified products. Receiving organic certification is a three-year process that requires considerable commitment from producers long before coffee can be sold as certified. Without the support of cooperatives and development organizations, it would be practically impossible for small-scale coffee producers to acquire organic certification due to the high cost of certifying individual small producers in Nicaragua and the nonexistence of organic trade channels for small producers outside the cooperative membership. Fair trade certification is only available to cooperatives of small-scale producers. Therefore, for a small-scale producer to be fair trade and organically certified, a cooperative membership is mandatory. Support for Soppexcca has come mainly from grants for the operation of technical assistance and credit programs and for infrastructure development (at the level of both cooperatives and households) for meeting and maintaining quality standards and certification requirements, such as quality, volume, traceability and input purchases. Buyers have encouraged the production of organic and fair trade coffee through long-term contracts, payment of price 7
Group certification allows organic certifiers to ensure compliance with organic standards based on a review of an internal control system and a randomly tested sample of members (20% of total membership) to validate compliance.
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