Video: Coffeeland Honduras on Kickstarter

Posted on November 25, 2010 by

About this project (via Kickstarter):

We love coffee and to truly love something you have to respect the people behind it. We are Hunt Slade and Jacob Orr of Safehouse Coffee & Tea and www.dirtyCup.com, a website dedicated to exploring and educating on the issues and realities surrounding the specialty coffee industry. In February of 2011, we are going to the Olancho Department of Honduras, specifically a small village called Linares. For ten days, we will live with and work beside the 22 families of Linares as we begin the 7-10 year process of fully regenerating their coffee farms. See, 12 years ago, a massive storm named Hurricane Mitch swept over the tiny, mountainous, largely agrarian country of Honduras. This hurricane was a life-defining event, even in this part of Central America that deals with hurricanes almost every year. Mitch set Honduras’ infrastructure back 50 years and the mountainside farms of Linares were all but leveled. The Linares families had been growing coffee for three generations on a season to season basis – meaning that they made just enough off a harvest to get through the next year and harvest the next crop. Once this manageable cycle was broken, the families of this extremely remote and poor village had no recourse but to resort to subsistence farming in their yards. Over the last 12 years, their water supply has been progressively fouled as the infrastructure of roads and utilities like water, sewer and power have still yet to reach them.

The staff of Safehouse Coffee & Tea are going to begin the arduous labors of not only restoring the productivity of their farms, but teaching the farmers a more advanced agriculture that will earn them a higher price for the produce of their work – essentially working alongside them to create a qualitatively new system of family-owned farms.

dirtyCup.com seeks to document this process on film from the ground level through to the final product. This Kickstarter campaign is to fund the first in this series of documentaries that will show how a company, no matter how small, can get involved in positive ways in the lives of the farmers that grow the coffee we sell. This documentary will explore the logistics of taking a trip to the dangerous back-country of an origin country where coffee is grown. It will also show the struggles of daily life in coffee farming communities and the real difficulties of getting involved in their lives beyond business. dirtyCup Productions’ documentary will accurately show the ups and downs of a coffee company going to origin and making a difference in the lives of farmers in ways that are socially responsible, environmentally sustainable and economically sound for all those involved.

dirtyCup has spent the last year developing a voice in the global specialty coffee community by making videos about issues, current events and even products with a humorous and edgy presentation so that the weight of these topics would be balanced with an uplifting slant that keeps the viewer engaged. Now that dirtyCup’s voice has been solidly legitimized by those in the industry elite, we feel that it is our responsibility to bring some farther-reaching content to the public. The efforts of Safehouse Coffee & Tea in Honduras fit this bill perfectly, but in order to video all of these events in the hostile environments of the jungles and mountains of Honduras, we need some upgrades to our camera equipment (as you can tell by our submission video). That’s what this Kickstarter campaign is for: a comprehensive but compact camera rig that can be lugged through the humid forests and hiked 4000+ feet up into the mountains. Here’s how the $10,000 cost of this project breaks down -

* Camera, lighting and storage equipment $6,000
* Travel + 10 days in the back-country of Honduras $3,000
* Incidentals (it would be foolish not to plan for the unforeseen on a trip of this kind) $1,000
* Post-production work, printing, promotion and distribution will be completely on our dime – we believe in this project that much

Come on and get involved with Coffeeland Honduras – let’s kickstart a new way of doing coffee business!

To back this project (there’s no minimum, and you’re only charged if they meet their goal), see who else is backing this project, the status of their fundraising, or more information in general, see their project page on Kickstarter.com.

  • http://coffeelands.crs.org Michael

    Mike:nnThanks for posting this. This is a fantastic idea and one I hope finds some funding. nnI would encourage the good folks at Safehouse and dirtycup to double down and seek twice the budget — half for the trip they planned in February, when cash from the harvest is rolling in and farmers are flush, and half for the trip they didn’t plan in August, when coffee cash is running out and tummies are grumbling with hunger. nnThe result would provide a kind of before-and-after insight into the cycles of want in the communities that grow our coffee and would seem aligned with dirtycup’s (worthy) goal of bringing “farther-reaching content” on coffee communities.nnIf we can contribute content or logistical support from El Salvador, Guatemala or Nicaragua, we would be delighted.nnMichaeln

  • http://www.dirtyCup.com Hunt Slade

    Hey Michael (Sheridan),nFirst of all, thanks so much for offering the help of your experience – I really think that the best of work is done on the shoulders of others’ successes, so we really appreciate you sharing your work in Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador and Nicaragua. Next, I would like to let you know that we actually have quarterly trips (at minimum) planned through 2017. While we welcome as much funding as could possibly be available, this documentary project we are trying to get funded through Kickstarter is only for the camera gear and travel required to archive the February 2011 trip. Finally, I’m not sure if I made it clear enough in the video and accompanying blog post, but the families have not been able to tend their farms in any way since Hurricane Mitch in 1998. As it stands now, our trip in Feb should coincide with the close of their harvest season but again, there will be no harvest for Linares, and what’s more, what little coffee there is still growing volunteer up the mountain is Catimor and all of that plantstock is to be removed and replaced with a yet to be determined quality cultivar. I received your email and will be in touch when I am back in the office tomorrow.nnThanks, Mike White for posting this and spreading the word! ~ Hunt Sladenn

  • http://coffeelands.crs.org Michael

    Hey there — any update on the Linares project? Can’t wait to see what comes out of it. Meantime, another documentary project designed to pull back the curtain on the secret lives of coffee farmers is scheduled to premiere at this year’s SCAA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XoHUXWE_JA&feature=player_profilepagennLooking forward to seeing some of the footage from Honduras. nnMichael

  • http://coffeelands.crs.org Michael

    Hunt:

    Cheers…Coming off of Symposium and SCAA, where the After the Harvest documentary seemed to move a lot of people to want to act on this issue, and coming back to this old thread to see how your project has advanced. Any updates worth sharing?

    Michael