Chiapas coffee growers discuss fair trade at Ithaca High School

By BRADY QUIRK-GARVAN
Ithaca (NY) Journal Staff

ITHACA -- Two representatives from the Northern Chiapas Coffee Network spoke to Ithaca High School students Wednesday about the conflict in their country and their desire to set up local fair-trade coffee markets.

Miguel Gonzalez Hernandez, 50, an elementary school teacher in Chiapas, Mexico, and Angel Alvarez, 30, an agrarian engineer, told students in four different classes about how their organic coffee network operates and their involvement in the conflict in Chiapas.

Chiapas, in southern Mexico on the Guatemala border and the Pacific Ocean, is a "place that is rich with natural resources, but is poor economically and socially," Alvarez said through a translator.

More...