A Padilla Update!

Vicente Padilla and his wife Carmen traveled to Managua in early February. He updated the community on the status of his fight to maintain ownership of his farm.

Now, a brief update on the Vicente Padilla case:

This year Vicente was able to harvest his coffee and use money to pay off farm debts.
He has become very active in local groups including: CPC representative, Representative of La Comissíón de Derrechos Humanos en Matagalpa, Community Council for Yasica Sur and San Ramón. Probably because of this work, he has gained respect in the community and holds a better relationship with the police force. When the police stopped by recently, they actually asked for permission to enter his property--a favor they have not bothered to pay him in the past.

However, he has been unable to sell coffee at organic prices due to an error committed by Bio Latina certification company.

The error has been described by Vicente as follows: 1)State St. filed a complaint against Vicente claiming his coffee was not organic, and thus that they did not interfere with the production of "organic" coffee as claimed by Vicente. 2)Without even visiting to investigate, Bio Latina issued a ruling against Vicente, revoking his organic certification for 2006-2007.

An official with Bio Latina has personally and verbally recognized his error and committed to reinstating Vicente's certification this year. No paperwork has come through yet, and we will continue to follow developments in this issue to hold Bio Latina accountable to their commitment. We will also make sure that once the organic license is reinstated, State Street Coffee makes note of that on their website where they currently have posted a notice of Padilla's (incorrect) non-organic status.

In solidarity,
The Political Action Group


If you would like to help Vicente and his family in their struggle, please send a message to the blog operator at presente87@gmail.com