Organic Coffee: Sustainable Development by Mayan Farmers

Maria Elena Martinez-Torres Organic Coffee: Sustainable Development by Mayan Farmers Auiens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2006, xiv + 176 pp.

In Organic Coffee, Maria Elena Martinez-Torres argues that organic coffee farming can provide a viable approach to "sustainable" rural development in cases where local communities have constructed and invested in sufficient "social capital" and "natural capital." Her assessment is based on fieldwork conducted in Chiapas, Mexico from 1996 to 2000 in which she gatiiered ecological data and surveyed 150 farmer families from six major small coffee organizations in the region.

The short, accessible book is primarily descriptive in nature, …