Representing Business on the Frontlines’ long-term commitment to its partners, LDS Charities and the indigenous communities it serves, this project built off the work of BOTFL X by furthering the implementation of cacao production and commercialization in the Polochic region of Guatemala. The Mayan Q’eqchi’ people are the predominate inhabitants of Polochic – a region that is severely lacking in infrastructure, government services, and economic opportunities.
Indigenous communities suffered a disproportionate share of the violence during Guatemala’s long history of conflict, leaving many families dispossessed of their traditional communal lands. As a consequence, over 90% of the population currently lives in extreme poverty, with most families living on less than $1 per day. Our project emphasized development in mountain communities in Chulac, where the people are a mixture of subsistence and cash crop farmers.
What was the problem?
In 2018, BOTFL X conducted research to identify potential long-term economic development solutions and ultimately provided recommendations regarding the viability and sustainability of cacao. Based on those recommendations, LDS Charities began a pilot program in September 2018 by purchasing 200 locally-grafted cacao trees and distributing those trees to approximately 15 families in Chulac. This pilot program was aimed at assessing both growing conditions for the trees themselves, and the interest of community members. As members of BOTFL XI, our goal was to conduct deeper research on cacao production and commercialization by developing ideas that would set participants of the pilot program up for success, which we define as extending LDS Charities’ mission of self-sufficiency at the individual and family level and building more prosperous communities through improvements in economic livelihoods.
What did we do?
Leading up to our trip to Guatemala, we held numerous meetings with various stakeholders within LDS Charities as well as with agricultural experts and current buyers of cacao in Guatemala. Our aim was to figure out how best to implement and build upon BOTFL X’s cacao
recommendations.
We spent our first week in Guatemala out in the Polochic region seeing firsthand what the needs of the Q’eqchi’ people were. We met with many families face-to-face and heard directly from them about the steps they had taken to better their own lives, many of them having learned to raise chickens and tilapia for sale within the local economy. We were unbelievably humbled to have been invited to eat a hand-made, home-cooked lunch inside one of the family’s homes, a privilege practically unheard of in the Q’eqchi’ culture when meeting strangers for the first time.
We visited several schools where we spoke with local students and were even honored as friends of the LDS Church at a ceremony for their recent computer donation. We danced traditional Mayan dances and had the chance to taste authentic Mayan cuisine, a truly unforgettable experience as we felt welcomed into a community that had previously seemed so distant. Our last few days in-country included visits to several buyers, processors, exporters, and even the governmental agricultural ministry. Many of the contacts we made showed potential to serve as the next steps in our project’s value chain.
Throughout our time in Guatemala, it became increasingly evident to us, as well as our partners, that pieces of this project were coming together through divine intervention. When we were served cacao at the school celebration, we were introduced to Maynor, a professor who also owned a plantation with roughly 100 cacao trees and who could potentially serve as a viable buyer option for the community members. As we were driving down a road in the Polochic Valley several days later, we stumbled across APODIP, a co-op whom we had unsuccessfully
tried to reach in the time before traveling to Guatemala. We went into Guatemala with a plan in mind, but the unexpected people and places that crossed paths with us ended up being the ones that framed many of our ultimate recommendations.
What was the turning point?
Going into the country, our research indicated that the best solution for the Q’eqchi’ people would be for them to organize themselves into a cooperative and collectively sell their harvests to a common buyer. Through speaking and breaking bread with various community members,
we noted a high degree of individualism and jealousy, effectively rendering cooperation impossible. As an example, one man began to achieve success by raising tilapia, only to have his neighbors quit buying fish from him in an attempt to sabotage his newly acquired wealth. We went into Guatemala with the typical business mindset of trying to attain profit maximization. The commercialization of cacao in these communities, however, was going to require working with a different mindset. The Q’eqchi’ people vary greatly in terms of status, motivation, and capability. Several of the people we met were unwilling or unable to care for new trees: noticeably neglecting them or having planted them without any shade. Because of limited literacy and numeracy skills, coordination and organization would prove to be difficult. Insights
such as these were critical to establishing a new set of objectives that would be appropriate for this environment. Rather than building a centralized operation that maximizes profit and creates economies of scale, this project would require a more nuanced implementation plan that emphasized individual production.
What was the recommendation?
Our recommendation focused on two primary activities: 1) the expansion of the pilot program and 2) further education for the youth within the community.
Any individual residing in Chulac or the surrounding communities can independently grow, maintain, and harvest cacao trees to be sold to any of several buyers. We recommend utilizing the local economy, expanding the cacao project to other willing families within the community, and providing current cacao growers with information on selling options that are available to them.
LDS Charities should invest further in the education of the community and prepare the youth who will be future leaders in the community. Specifically, we recommend a school curriculum that addresses techniques for cacao cultivation as well as the financial benefits of crop diversification.
What actually happened?
Our BOTFL team introduced these ideas and our analyses with our LDS Charities partners in Salt Lake City and Guatemala, which led to additional valuable insights and tactical strategies. Our research and recommendations provided a clear starting point and framework for our partner to move the pilot program forward and expand the project to even more families in the mountain communities within the next several years. If this project is scaled the way we believe it can be, within a decade, participating families can expect to be earning more than $2 per day, which is above the international poverty line. This multi-year collaboration between Notre Dame and LDS Charities has the potential to foster true and impactful long-term economic development for the members of the Q’eqchi’ community.