alternative

The first libertarian coffee from the farmer to the consumer
Dialogue between Marco Gastoni and the collective Caffè Malatesta of Lecco

Last April we dedicated the cover and one dossier, prepared by Enrico Massetti, to the zapatista coffee.
This time our collaborator Mark Gaston went to see the promoters of a new, self-managed libertarian initiative who always works in the coffee sector. Recalling the name (and not only) of the most famous Italian anarchist.

The project Coffee Malatesta was born in Lecco in January 2010 when a group of young people gas the possibility to use free of charge a machine for roasting coffee, into disuse for several years, at the headquarters of the GAS Lecco (Associazione Comunità della Sporta). From an experimental activity was born in a short time with a collective will to create a working reality-based self-managed, anti-authoritarian decision-making dynamics, in the belief that a different way of life the production and consumption can be the basis of a social change in the sense of solidarity as an alternative to a capitalist economy preys on cultures, territories, time and space of our lives. In a year and a half of work increasing and many new relationships with purchasing groups, associations, comrades and friends, the team has faced important choices about the direction and practices of the project, despite the still embryonic nature and the absolute lack of initial capital has resulted in, and still involves a great difficulty in balancing the desire to make ethical decisions radicals on the one hand, with the pressing need for cash to reach the minimum target of autonomy (self-creation of an economic entity).

MG: In the last few months of working together to prepare and shape the project Malatesta Coffee I got to really know and appreciate your determination to carry out the project of roasting. Can you explain to readers what led a group of university students and workers in their early twenties to undertake this activity?

[Cristiano] Since the early stage of the project, we believed that roasting could be an instrument of emancipation from job insecurity and isolation: it was to bet on solidarity and mutual support within and outside of the collective, as a real alternative the current economic situation and employment. Coming from the experiences of libertarian activism at a national and regional level, we believe that the union of efforts and multiple voltages should be no more envisioned self-utopia, but a real project with a real prospect. In this way we were, and we still are, to field test a different relationship management and conflict resolution, between labor and capital.

MG: Can you briefly describe the initial stages of the project and how the situation is evolvinge?

[Nicolò] Let's say that our project was initiated thanks to the convergence of a series of circumstances, primarily the presence of certain machinery of roasting and grinding coffee in disuse in the home of the Solidarity Group Purchase ("GAS") Lecco "the Community of the sporta," of which we are members. It is clear that without the availability of the owner of the machines and the support of members of the GAS, our experience could not see the light ...
[Jacopo] After an apprenticeship and experimentation lasted several months, during which we developed our blend of coffee, we began presenting our project to reality, several GAS and the area, receiving appreciation and support. At the same time, we have made contacts with different groups of friends and fellow libertarians, and in 2010 we met the libertarian network of support for Chiapas "Coordinadora" (http://coordinadora.noblogs.org). It can be said that the agreement with the "Coordinadora", in April 2011, represented a turning point in the development of the project, as the confidence that the assembly of the network has shown us by giving us the complete preparation of its coffee (the "Durito") has allowed to give a first important foundation of stability and continuity to our business.
[Elisa] Now we are in a decisive phase. We decided to constitute ourselves as a cooperative by the autumn, and to do that we have launched a campaign of extraordinary subscription.

Tensions with the capitalist market

MG: Tell us a little about the subscription campaign. What is the financial requirements to be met, how will be invested and what are the deadlines? How are you moving to secure funding?

[Jacopo]: From the beginning we wanted to project the most part, shared by all those who can, buying coffee, contributing to the growth of a circuit alternative economic and employment in the belief that overturning the existing relations of domination is about day by day choices of certain field. For this reason, we prefer to turn to the composite reality of the libertarian movement, the solidarity of the buying groups and individuals rather than the conventional banking system and credit to cover the financial needs of the initiative. We have estimated, with the help of technicians, that the minimum amount needed for start of the initiative is about 15,000 €, to cover necessary expenses such as leases and investments required of a laboratory and putting it up to standard, notary fees and tax, the transfer of machinery for roasting, the purchase of a manual weighing, the pre-financing of 2012 green coffee crop, etc..
We therefore take part in this extraordinary campaign for subscription on an individual and / or collectively, through several possible ways such as subscriptions, no costly loans, benefits initiatives, pre-financing and distribution of coffee and promotion of the project. Obviously we are at your disposal for meetings for the presentation and promotion, tastings and events (see sidebar for contact)..
[Elisa]: The first reality that has decided to support us with a loan from the end of July, giving us a big shot in the arm, was the libertarian non-profit association "PaviainserieA", also attached to the Coordinadora. One of the many benefits that we have participated in initiatives to date was held in Milan in self-managed Cascina Torchiera at the end of July, which has also decided to deploy and use our coffee, in addition to the Circolo dei Malfattori of Via Torricelli.

MG: How do you reconcile your libertarian education by building a company that will conduct its business in a capitalist market? Do you think that the cooperative form can ensure a general consistency between ends and means, or you have other ideas to affect reality in the libertarian sense?

[Cristiano] We are convinced that no legal formula can be guaranteed in advance nor horizontal relations within a certain responsibility in the relationship with communities and farmers who buys and distributes coffee (I'm testing the many "Co"-style company structures). It all depends on the choices we collectively take each day.
Certainly an experience like ours is to live every day with strong tensions against the capitalist market, but there are spaces to develop self-management experiences that suddenly change the scenario. We can not expect a tool like the Coffee Malatesta is the prototype of the libertarian dimension of work, but rather a step in rebuilding the social fabric of self-management (Mutual Aid Society, the Consumer Cooperative, group homes, etc..) which was washed first by fascism and then by the economic speculative boom. For this we have no fear of interacting in the present economic reality, because it is from within, as a popular response, born of the experience of change.

MG: The challenge is to reconcile the market and libertarian principles in order to develop different forms of relationship between company and employees and among suppliers and customers. We could give examples of how in practice you are making this summary?

[Cristiano] More than a "conciliation" is substantially alter the predation and competition practices governing the market today. Compared to searching and retrieval of the green coffee we started with the aim of overcoming the mediation of the importers and we are already achieving significant results through the European Network of Support for Chiapas "RedProZapa" at the libertarian Hamburg cooperative Café Libertad and other small Italian associations and cooperatives that operate on projects of solidarity with indigenous peoples who grow coffee. Through these relationships anything but "business" we are now able to have coffee from sympathetic circuits, where the work of the farmers is recognized and where cultivation takes place according to natural and traditional methods. On the domestic side, although to date none of us is still paid for his work, we try to make decisions so as horizontal as possible and shared, balancing tasks and working times according to the possibilities and circumstances in each.

Small roasting, traditional toasting

MG: What are the differences between your coffee and those that can be found on supermarket shelves? This figure was only self-production and distribution by workers or are there other differences? And your current customers are able to perceive that this is not the usual Fair coffee?

[Elisa]: The differences between our coffee and those found in the supermarket are many and substantial: the first the search for direct contact with the producers' cooperatives, which is far from easy for those who looks for the first time the world of coffee. Currently, we have achieved this by working with the Cooperative Café Libertad in Hamburg regarding the importation of Zapatista coffee and the Honduras, and the Mondo Solidale Association for the origin of Guatemala.
[Jacopo]: Furthermore, ours is a small artisan roasting, the coffee is roasted in small quantities with the traditional method, much slower than the industrial roasting, but that enhances the flavor of different types of coffee: the result is improved product quality and the ability to make different "tailor blends," that fit the needs and tastes of those who drink our coffee. But the most important fact is that we try to retrieve a craftsman who is going to know more and more to meet extinction, swallowed up by large industrial roasters: those who until now have enjoyed and supported our project have noticed that our coffee wants to extend the principles of equity and solidarity beyond the early stages of cultivation and harvesting, manage to get to the same standards of ethics including the final stages of roasting and grinding, which are normally assigned, even in the case of fair Trade coffee, to large industrial production companies in order to reduce costs.
[Nicolò]: In the future we plan to develop, in collaboration with activities similar to ours, a network of self-certification of coffee, independent circuits normally used to ensure the ethical and environmental sustainability of products that reproduce the mechanisms of profit and speculation that we strive to fight.

MG: Let's talk about 'price: the selling price of your coffee is in line with other organic and fair trade products, and consequently has a higher price than cheap supermarket coffee. How can you explain this difference?

[Jacopo]: Certainly an important factor is the method of cultivation of green coffee: there is indeed a huge difference between coffee grown in a natural, non-intensive way and in association with other crops, and the gigantic extensions worked in monocultures (large estates). In the first case there will be a harvest of less abundant but higher quality and without erosion and overexploitation of land, in the second case, there will be a bigger yield but lower quality, which will be repeated in subsequent years only by resorting to the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.
But the main factors that affect the final prices are the property of land and the type of purchase of green coffee, which are also closely related to each other. In fact, when the indigenous farmers td own the fields, often confederated in small cooperatives with the support of solidarity associations that then they buy green coffee at a price that is always above the market price (which is determined to bag London and New York), thus ensuring the survival of farmers and their communities. However, if the land is owned by landlords, the profit becomes the sole objective: the coffee is traded by importers who speculate on the raw material then dictating the prices of coffee on the international market, and of course to the workers are left crumbs.

MG: So the variable price in this case is indicative of a different relationship between the parties that make up the production chain. In other words, the price of Malatesta coffee can not go below a certain threshold without causing a "suffering" in individuals who contribute to the process, compromising their ability to survive and encouraging, therefore, the capitalist domination. Can you explain your choice to publish and update the transparent price (or price source) of all your products?

[Nicolò] We think it is important for those who drink coffee to know the path and the role that different actors have played in the process, showing how each step affects the final price. Keep in mind that currently more than 50% of the price of Malatesta coffee is the cost of raw material, ie that is paid to farmers who produce it. Our roasting is then completely different from that of large industrial plants: this means that our economic structure is atypical compared to other producers of coffee (including Fair Trade & Solidarity). In particular, the margin reserved for roasting manages to be contained only because we do not create any surplus value, but we only try to reward the work and support the project.
We know that the price is a sensitive issue and do not want a coffee "ethical" reserved for those who can afford it: on our part there is an effort to contain costs as much as possible, but it is clear that you can not get discount prices when the entire production chain is based on the rejection of exploitation and environmental devastation.

Why do we refer to Malatesta

MG: To close this interview, a question which springs to mind with regard to the name you chose for your coffee and your initiative. Coffee Malatesta is a name undoubtedly very challenging and I, personally, I loved it the first moment. I note, however, that call the cafe with the name of one of the most feared Italian revolutionaries is not a move dictated by marketing needs, in a general context where anarchism is demonized by all media. I found it a gesture proud and very brave and I hope it brings you good wishes. I am sure that Errico Malatesta, who though he did not like to be placed on the pedestal, under present circumstances would support the initiative ...

[Cristiano] Very often we find ourselves having to explain the genesis and the attitude with which we have chosen this name for us is a sort of constant reference to the will of the individual and collective empowerment that drives the project. In a situation like this we believe it is crucial to have more clear who we are and where we want to go, and in this sense very clearly declared libertarian identity helps us to get our hands on when we interact with people who are not libertarians . It is clear that there is no desire for ownership or use of a historical figure of tremendous importance as Malatesta, but rather a real tension to change one's life and tragic social circumstances in which we are, two aspects which, as Malatesta has well demonstrated with its intense revolutionary activity, can and must go hand in hand.

Marco Gastoni