Gund Fellow, Ernesto Méndez, and collaborators published, “Explaining the ‘hungry farmer paradox’: Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua’s corn and coffee markets,” in Global Environmental Change. 

Their research uses a participatory action research methodology to examine seasonal hunger experienced by 244 fair trade and organic farmers in Northern Nicaragua.  Their research found that households experienced an average of 3 months of seasonal hunger and that households that practice environmentally friendly farming had no discernable impacts on seasonal hunger. 

Their research re-enforces our current understanding of food insecurity amongst farmers and the influence of factors including: (1) annual cycles of precipitation and rising maize prices during the lean months; (2) inter annual droughts and periodic storms; and (3) the long-term inability of coffee harvests and prices to provide sufficient income. However their research does highlight the discordance between the presence of hunger among coffee producers and the assumptions around “sustainable” coffee marketing.

Importantly, they examine solutions involving fair trade cooperatives, re-localization of food distribution and call out various areas for increased investments and integrated strategies to reduce threats to food security, livelihoods, and biodiversity.

Congratulations to Ernesto and team on this important article!