She Would Be a migrant, but she’s NOT. Rosa has sustainable employment with a thriveable wage at the San Lazaro Coffee farm in Honduras.

San Lázaro Coffee is one of the endeavors that I lead as a sustainable tool for transformation. At San Lazaro Coffee we’re committed to a Quadruple Bottom Line which measures our success on four levels, what we call our 4 P's. People, Purpose, Planet, and Profit. P-eople, meaning our amazing employees, speaks to our care for their overall well being, this is a commitment that we've had since we bought the farm in 2006.

Employees from the San Lazaro Coffee farm

For people, families, and communities to thrive they do not need any "thing" given to them, all they need is an Opportunity. We have chosen to operate our farm by giving an opportunity to women to be leaders in an industry that is dominated by men. We've invested a lot of time, energy, and money in our employees, and we continue to do so, because developing and growing people is how we will see lasting transformation in impoverished communities around the world and it’s how we see the coffee industry transform from a history of poor treatment of farm workers to a legacy of not only great coffee but great employment.

At San Lazaro Coffee one of our key performance indicators measures how we've invested in our People. This quadruple bottom line commitment doesn't take away from our profitability goals, not at all. Without financial profit we would go out of business. But what this does means is that we're not going to sacrifice other areas, such as the care of our People, in order to maximize profit. The results are evident on the faces of our employees.

Rosa picking coffee at the San Lazaro Coffee farm

Traditionally agricultural workers around the globe are some of the hardest working and some of the lowest compensated. The coffee industry has a long documented history of being notoriously bad at compensation. In 2017 it was time for our periodic Fair Trade Certification audit of our farm. After a thorough review of the farm, our procedures and protocols, it was time for the financial review. After reviewing our payroll records, the auditor questioned our compensation, which we knew to be great, and he asked, “Why are you paying your employees this?” Our accountant immediately got defensive, explaining that our commitment goes far beyond anything that anyone is doing in our region in terms of care and compensation for their employees and that we had been doing this long before we were Fair Trade Certified. Then the auditor said, “No, I’m referring to why are you all paying this much, I’ve never audited a farm that pays their employees this much, you really don’t have to pay this.” This confession from the entity that is charged with being the standard for employee treatment across many industries around the globe was heartbreaking and that fact that we were being challenged to rethink our business’s compensation model by Fair Trade was disappointing. With this shortly thereafter we decided that we would not continue to maintain the Fair Trade Certification but rather we’d invest the $8,000 that we paid annually for our certification directly back into our people.

Our commitment to our people doesn't end at compensation; it also includes ongoing teaching and training, free medical and dental care, and scholarships for our employees' children to attend highschool. Not only do we believe that it’s the right thing to do, we have been doing it long enough to see the impact.

Medical Consult at the San Lazaro Coffee farm.

The families that are blessed by employment on our farm are part of a group of people that we like to call the “Would Be’s”. They Would Be migrants, but they’re not because they’ve been given an opportunity to thrive at home. Rosa is one of those Would Be’s.

Rosa was born in the La Botija mountains where she has lived her entire life. She and her entire family have always worked on the farms in the region and they have always struggled to just get by. This subsistence way of life has changed for Rosa, her husband Gregorio, and their 4 children. In 2020 after many years of saving Rosa was able to buy a piece of land for her family and build a house, actually a quite large house. She and her family along with friends from the community who pitched in to make the adobe bricks themselves, saw the lumber they needed themselves, and slowly but surely put up the walls, the roof, and the doors, themselves!!

Rosa in front of her new house.

Rosa has changed her family’s legacy. Rosa takes great pride in her work on the farm and she takes great pride in what she’s accomplished for her family. Likewise, we at San Lazaro Coffee take great pride in our amazing employees, like Rosa, who are committed to producing the highest quality coffee that we can and who are committed to taking advantage of the opportunity that they’ve been given through sustainable employment.