Coban, Apr. 12 - When coffee prices fell to 100-year lows at the start of the decade, the Q'eqchi Maya coffee growers at Guatemala's Chicoj cooperative began eyeing new crops to protect themselves from future volatility.
With help from a government program, Chicoj, nestled in jungled cloud forests of Coban five hours north of the capital, began to nurture 250 acres of communally grown pine trees to be sold as timber.
The cooperative was following the lead of the Central American nation's larger coffee plantations, which now produce everything from sun-dried tomatoes to macadamia nuts.
But many small farmers in Guatemala, with tiny plots of land and few resources, have a tougher time planting new products to earn extra income and protect against devastation if world coffee prices dip again.
Guatemala is Central America's largest coffee producer, exporting 3.35 million 60-kg bags in 2005/06.
Prices are now firmly above the 50 cents per lb of a few years ago, when a glut in world supply put many growers out of business, leading to hunger and widespread migration from the countryside.
Chicoj's 200-plus members were deep in debt and the group operated at a loss for several years before prices picked up. By that time, they decided that relying only on coffee for income was too risky, amd looked at the pine trees that now carpet their land.
The mature trees, planted with financial support from the government, will not be harvested until 2017. In the meantime, the local farmers chop and sell the underbrush to local box makers at a modest profit distributed among the members.
"We are seeing the benefits of diversifying our crops, if the price of one drops you can take advantage of the other," said Victor Chen, the cooperative's president.
"Wood has a more stable price," he added, clumping through the chilly soft soil of the region. "Coffee is risky, right now the price is high but tomorrow it could hit bottom again."
"HARD TO CHANGE"
The recovery in coffee prices means many producers can reinvest in their farms, either by growing high-quality or organic beans sold at a premium or by planting something else altogether.
Large farmers with vast plantations have the advantage of capital and capacity to invest in specialty products like ornamental plants or spices sold to niche international buyers at a premium.
Some farmers are growing macadamia trees, which can double as shade trees for coffee plots, and Guatemala is now the world's fourth largest producer of the gourmet nut.
In Coban, more farmers are growing cardamom alongside their coffee. Guatemala is already the world's number one exporter of the green aromatic spice brewed with coffee in the Arab world and used to flavor spicy Indian cooking.
But both cardamom and coffee take several years to become productive and a macadamia tree needs more than a decade of care before it can produce at a profit. This excludes many farmers still struggling with debt taken during the crisis.
"It is not easy to plant these crops," said Gerardo de Leon, president of cooperative exporter Fedecocagua, an umbrella group for 30,000 small producers.
"The smaller you are, the tougher it is to dedicate yourself to something besides coffee," said de Leon. "It's hard to change, you need a lot of technical support, and funding to recoup your investment."
But the chainsaw teams at the Chicoj cooperative working to measure, chop and haul by hand pine logs from the mountain tops are hoping that the labor they put now into alternative products will lead to a payoff in the future.
"Coffee is doing a little better but the prices haven't been so good that people are ready to abandon the pine trees," said Rafael Sanchez, a technical advisor to Chicoj.
"They've lived the experience, they know coffee prices could drop again, they want something to fall back on," he said.