Between 1999 and 2005 the deregulation of the international coffee commodity chain produced both a coffee crisis, characterized by the lowest prices ever for coffee farmers in producing countries, as well as a coffee boom within consuming countries as "the latte revolution" took shape. This research seeks to understand how social, economic and environmental change have unfolded in the producing country of Costa Rica following this coffee crisis. The impacts of two resistance strategies that peasant coffee farmers and their allies have deployed in the face of this crisis are tested: participation in Fair Trade marketing networks and the adoption of agroecological farming practices. Over six years of ethnographic community-based fieldwork, more than 70 agrobiodiversity inventories, archival research, semi-structured interviews, numerous farmer focus groups as well as a randomized survey of more than 100 farm-households were the main methodologies utilized to gather data for this research project.

I find that Fair Trade price premiums were inconsequential in providing support for smallholder resistance to the coffee crisis in Costa Rica. I find pivotal, the role played by Costa Rican governmental institutions in a successful agroecological transition that reduced external input costs. This is significant because the process took place amidst the backdrop of "roll-back neoliberalism" characterized by privatization and declining state involvement in the provision of services. With no market, not even a "fair" one, able or willing to provide the training and unique resources these smallholders needed, the state not only stepped in, but was successful according to the results of this study. With innumerable environmental, social and economic spillover effects of this transition process accruing at several scales, the results of this study argue for the creation or redirection of state-led institutions with the power and support to conduct agroecological research and training, especially in the de-technification transitional process to low-external input agriculture.

An internationally recognized leader in the field of agroecology, Stephen (Steve) Gliessman is the Alfred E. Heller Professor of Agroecology in UC Santa Cruz’s Environmental Studies Department, where he has taught since 1981. He earned his doctorate in plant ecology at UC Santa Barbara, and was the founding director of the UCSC Agroecology Program (now the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems). His teaching focuses on agroecology, sustainable agriculture, organic gardening, ethnobotany, California natural history, botany and ecology. He is the author of the groundbreaking textbook Agroecology: The Ecology of Sustainable Food Systems (Second Edition, CRC 2006), and numerous other books and articles. In 2008, Gliessman became the chief editor of the internationally known Journal of Sustainable Agriculture.

Gliessman’s activities in the field of sustainable agriculture are extensive. He founded and directs the Program in Community and Agroecology (PICA), an experiential living/learning program at UCSC. He heads UCSC’s Agroecology Research Group, an interdisciplinary body of faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students, research associates, postdoctoral researchers, and international visitors from the agroecological community. In 2001, Steve and his wife Robbie Jaffe (also interviewed in this series) started the Community Agroecology Network (CAN). CAN’s goal is to help a network of rural, primarily coffee-growing communities in Mexico and Central America develop self-sufficiency and sustainable growing practices. CAN markets coffee directly to individuals, institutions, and markets in the United States. Those who wander through the Downtown Santa Cruz Farmers’ Market can sample and purchase CAN coffee at the market, UCSC students can drink it in campus dining halls and cafes, and everyone else can order the coffee and have it shipped to their home. CAN and PICA also co-sponsor the International Agroecology Short Course, which Gliessman has taught since 1999 in venues as diverse as Costa Rica, Mexico, and Vermont.

A consummate storyteller, Gliessman reflected on the diverse aspects of his life in agroecology in this comprehensive interview conducted by Irene Reti on three different occasions: April 16, May 25, and June 12, 2007, in his offices on the UCSC campus. Gliessman’s office shelves are packed with books and journals, conference programs, buttons, posters, and other archival material representing forty years of reading and publishing in his field. He assured Reti that he “never throws anything away.” He sometimes referred to these books during the interview; at one point he held up a packet of heirloom seeds from Brazil, at another a bottle of olive oil from his own organic orchard and vineyard, Condor’s Hope Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California—a place close to his heart.

The Elkhorn Slough is located in the Central Monterey Bay area and is considered one of the most ecologically important estuarine systems in California. Over 1400 acres of the slough are in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System. Non-point source pollutants from farm use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have been identified as a primary cause of water quality degradation in Elkhorn Slough. Erosion of sediments from cultivated slopes surrounding the slough is likewise a serious problem. In spite of this, there nave been few studies addressing the relationship between cultivation practices, inputs to the estuary, and ecological effects of these inputs.

This paper reports preliminary, first-year results of a long term project to examine the effects of agricultural production on an adjacent wetland on a 137 acre ranch in the Elkhorn Slough. In two to four years, the organizations involved in the project intend to begin converting management of the land to more sustainable agricultural practices. Portions of the land will be restored to native habitat, while others will be used for implementing and testing sustainable agricultural practices. On the upland portions of the ranch we have documented land-use history and current management practices and inputs, and we have soil characteristics, movement of sediment and runoff water, leaching of nutrients in soil water, and deposition of sediment and nutrients. In the wetlands portion we mapped out marsh vegetation, assessed macroalgae and invertebrate populations, censused birds, and measured marsh water quality. These parameters will be used in the future to assess what changes occur after conversion of the land. This information will be used as an ecological baseline for designing low-input management systems in the future. An additional goal is working with the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve and the Elkhorn Slough Foundation to develop a strong partnership between the public and private sectors for addressing watershed issues in the slough.