This August ended a nearly decade-long drought in Chihuahua, Mexico. The rain was greeted with celebration by the families who for generations have farmed the land that lines this cool, hilly region.
Among those dancing and singing Mexican ballads were members of a visiting American family, the Broetjes. They own a 5,000-acre apple enterprise, Broetje First Fruits of Washington, one of the United States' largest orchards.
The Broetje family's trip to Chihuahua was the latest step in a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) program that links Mexican farmers with the orchards of Washington and the advanced technology used to harvest them.
The program has already improved the quality of life for dozens of Mexican farming families, decreasing their need to migrate to the United States. It has also helped the farmers improve the size and quality of their harvests, which could one day put their Gala apples in Thanksgiving pies across the United States.
“Maybe we can make enough money so that the kids will come home to me now,” says Gilberto, the 76-year-old father of Isidro Molinar, one of dozens of farmers participating in a CRS project, Un Mercado Justo (A Just Market). Gilberto is referring to Isidro’s three brothers and sister, who, like many others in the region, migrated in desperation to the United States several years ago.
As many as 70 percent of family growers in Chihuahua have sent at least one member of their family to the United States to find work. CRS Mexico and a Chihuahan farmers' cooperative, Frente Democratico Campesino, started Un Mercado Justo last year. Their goal was to help Mexican growers improve the techniques of their apple production so they can earn a livable wage, and so that families would not feel pressure to migrate.
With no credit, cooling systems or means of transport, small apple-growers in Mexico have no access to the quality apple market, which is flooded by apples from the United States and China. Desperate for income at the end of the growing season, the Mexican farmers have traditionally had no choice but to accept rock-bottom prices from middlemen — called “coyotes” — for apples still on the tree.
In the project's first phase, Un Mercado Justo gave a group of 20 farmer families the average “coyote” price of just over 18 cents a pound for their apples. The families then pooled their apples and stored them in a temperature-controlled space until the price cycle peaked last December. Their strategy worked. The net price for their apples more than doubled, the farmers receiving as much as 51 cents per pound.
Meanwhile, three of the cooperative's growers traveled to Broetje orchards in Washington last winter to learn pruning and thinning techniques, and to get a tour of packing and cooling facilities from Broetje experts. The Mexican growers took those skills back to share, and now 104 farm families have committed to upgrading their apples in the next two years
Isidro traveled to Washington last winter and has already put the lessons he learned to good use to improve the size and quality of his Gala variety. He is now ready to move up in the market and earn enough money to help his siblings return home.
The next phase of the project will help Isidro and more than 120 other families produce higher quality, larger, more profitable apples for a higher niche in the Mexican market.
With two grants from the Broetje family, CRS/Mexico and the Frente Democratico Campesino created a revolving credit fund to support the marketing process, including an apple growers' school. Using a farmer-to-farmer education model, the school teaches the Mexican farmers the benefits of growing higher quality fruit.
As part of another series of educational exchanges this winter, technical experts from the Broetje orchard will set up demonstration acres and work side-by-side with Frente Democratico Campesino farmers on such critical techniques as thinning and pruning.
The group hopes to sell 624 tons of apples at prices about one-and-a-half times the minimum wage — a wage that will enable them to stay in Mexico.
Robyn Fieser is the CRS communications officer for Latin America and the Caribbean.
