'Alta Gracia' visit raises spirits

Author: Caroline Stauffer

A bond exists between Middlebury College and the Dominican Republic - and it's not merely the dozens of students who flock to the island nation's beaches each vacation period.

Travelers who take the time to explore the island outside of the usual tourist destinations may notice a lingering national deference to three of the still-developing nation's national heroines, the Mirabal sisters. The sisters - three of whom were tragically murdered in 1960 during the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship - are the subject of "In the Time of the Butterflies," the best-selling novel by Dominican native and Middlebury College Writer-in-Residence Julia Alvarez '71.

Middlebury's link to the DR in fact stems from Alvarez and husband Bill Eichner's ownership of an organic coffee farm for the past 10 years: Finca Alta Gracia.

The core values that seem to be intrinsic to Alta Gracia are analogous to those possessed by many in Vermont's Champlain Valley and at the College - sustainable and environmentally sound agriculture, third world development and a commitment to local communities and improving literacy. Many students have visited the farm over the years, whether completing J-Term projects or doing research for Middlebury's own organic garden. College graduates have served as volunteer teachers in the school adjacent to the farm.

Just under two years ago, struggling to run the farm from afar and holding full time jobs in the states, Alvarez and Eichner turned the farm's operation over to the national Instituto Dominican de Investigaciones Agropecuarias y Forestales (IDIAF). Though they still own the property, Alvarez now describes their roles with the farm as advisory. The day-to-day management is handled by people who are embedded in the community, such as Filomeno Jiménez, who will enthusiastically talk for hours about developments in organic farming with visitors, and Alvarez thinks that is just the way it should be.

Alvarez and Eichner have turned over other aspects of the Alta Gracia project as well.

The coffee produced at Alta Gracia is sold in the United States by the Vermont Coffee company, which is committed to selling only coffee that guarantees fair wages for producers. When Paul Ralston, owner of the Vermont Coffee Company, first met Alvarez and Eichner, the pair was actually bringing back Alta Gracia coffee beans to the United States in duffel bags, trying to find a roaster that shared their philosophy of fair trade.

Today, the Vermont Coffee Company sells Alta Gracia coffee and a second brew that blends Alta Gracia with a Sumatran and Costa Rican coffee known as Las Mariposas - another reference to the Mirabal sisters.

The push to serve fair trade coffee in Middlebury College dining halls several years ago did not result in the College purchasing Vermont Coffee Company coffee, a disappointment to Alvarez, though several varieties of coffee served are labeled fair trade.

Alvarez is still concerned with the ability of big coffee corporations to drive down the price of coffee, hurting small local farmers such as those that surround Finca Alta Gracia in the DR. "A lot of these farmers don't even read and write - they have no way to access first world markets to get fair trade, fair wage, fair return," she said.

Alta Gracia has therefore looked to other sources of income in order to continue its projects when the price of coffee is down. One such source is "ecotourism." Sarah DeCandio voluntarily coordinates visits to the farm from Rutland, and many of the farm's visitors are Vermonters.

IDIAF has formed a partnership with the University in Jarabacoa, enabling Dominican students majoring in agriculture or studying ecotourism to complete internships at Alta Gracia. Visitors to the farm enjoy traditional Dominican meals with the Interns and workers. The current interns do not speak any English and they estimate that less than five percent of the farm's visitors speak Spanish, often making communication difficult, but perhaps adding to the comfortably rustic experience.

A visit to Alta Gracia requires a drive Southeast of Santiago, the DR's second largest city, a climb though a mountainous region that includes the highest peak in the Caribbean - sure to test any Dominican-issued rental car - to the city of Jarabacoa, a name originating from the Taino Indians who occupied the island prior to the arrival of the Spanish. The final stretch to the farm runs far out of town along a narrow mountain ridge featuring breathtaking scenery.

Upon arriving at the farm, visitors first notice the coffee beans drying in the sun in the driveway. The seemingly primitive setup actually makes up one of the many innovative experiments IDIAF is conducting in hopes of finding methods to improve organic farming with limited technology.

"The DR had been a plantation economy for so long - it takes generations to change to more sustainable system of agriculture," Alvarez said.

The 1,400-acre farm produces 25 varietals of coffee. Approximately 70 percent of the coffee beans produced are deemed good enough to be sold in first world markets.

In walking around the farm, one quickly comes to realize that coffee is not all Alta Gracia is about. Just up the road from the main building is a tiny library where volunteers regularly teach. The altruistic spirit of Alta Gracia seems to have transcended to the neighboring community, where a Spanish expatriate woman runs a ceramics studio and helps local women make traditional Taino pottery to sell.

Alvarez admitted that she cannot claim to have written her latest novel "Saving the World" at the farm. In fact, she has done very little writing there at all, though she visits four or five times each year. "There is too much work to do on the farm to be able to enjoy the luxury of writing," she said. "That said, it feeds my soul - not to mention it assuages some of the guilt and burden I feel from being one of those lucky first world people who lives so well compared to the rest of our human family."