Coffee growing in Guatemala has a brutal history, beginning with indigenous Mayan peoples being driven from their lands and then being forced to work as labourers.
Guatemala’s first democratic government instituted highly successful land reforms aimed at reversing this injustice. However, this government was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup.
A 36-year civil war ensued, resulting in the deaths of 200,000 citizens and displacing as much as half of the rural population. The war ended in 1996 but stark inequality and poverty remain.
The 2001 fall in coffee prices caused larger plantations to move away from coffee farming,