Justice is brewing in Guatemala.

Any coffee aficionado knows Guatemala is one of the world headquarters for flavorful, nuanced beans. The land around Lake Atitlan in the country's western highlands in particular is perfect for growing: an altitude well above 5,000 feet, rich volcanic soil, warm days, cool nights, and plenty of rain and sun.

But after the International Coffee Agreement that kept prices stable--and high--was dissolved 15 years ago and production increased dramatically while demand didn't, the coffee market collapsed and coffee-growing communities were hit hard. In the past few years, prices paid to farmers have reached 30-year lows. Many small-scale coffee farmers have found their harvests selling for less than half of production costs, making it nearly impossible to eke out a living from the land. This past spring Guatemalan farmers could sell 100 pounds of raw coffee beans on the world market for 95 quetzales--about $12.

So, perhaps surprisingly, it's a quiet, hopeful group of about 50 growers with heavy, bean-filled sacks that gathers this misty February afternoon outside a small building and waits to make a sale. The fair-trade program they're a part of, sponsored by the Catholic mission in the lakeside town of San Lucas Toliman, pays coffee growers more than double the world-market price--200 quetzales. The program started 12 years ago with just seven families. Now 500 families sell their beans to the mission's program, Juan-Ana Coffee, which handles the processing, roasting, and distribution. Much of the Juan-Ana coffee is imported to the United States by the Diocese of New Ulm, Minnesota and is sold to universities, churches, and individuals around the country.

The alternatives--working for large nearby coffee farms, known as fincas, for less than $3 a day, selling their beans on the world market, or simply abandoning their fields in search of work--are bleak.

The Catholic Church has played a key role in fair trade programs like the one in San Lucas. Two of the large Guatemalan coffee-grower groups that work with fair-trade giant Equal Exchange, the 18-year-old Massachusetts-based worker-owned cooperative, were initially organized by the Catholic dioceses of San Marcos and Quetzaltenango.

These programs allow thousands of small-scale farmers and their families to make a living in their own communities instead of fleeing to the rapidly-expanding capital, Guatemala City--or further on to Mexico or the U.S. in hopes of finding work with better pay. And that's both a relief and a big step in a country that is trying to pull itself out of a difficult, dismal history.

Guatemala is a country struggling with poverty and all the problems it brings. Crime is rampant, children are malnourished, health care and education are not always accessible. Residents still feel the effects of the 36-year civil war that ended eight years ago. But the country does have one particularly bright jewel in its possession: some of the most beautiful, productive land on earth. In a country where just over half of the work force is engaged in agriculture, that's the kind of richness to have.

Trouble is, 70 percent of the productive land is owned by 2 percent of the population. And small-scale farmers, many of whom are indigenous Mayans whose families have been cultivating this very land for centuries, often do not legally own the land they work. Without that, they have no real guarantee that their land will remain in their possession, and they have no access to credit because they have no title to act as collateral. Most don't have the money to pay the government to register their land. And many others are simply landless, particularly those who have been displaced because of natural disasters and those who left home because of limited economic opportunities.

Msgr. Gregory Schaffer has served at the mission in San Lucas Toliman in the department of Solola for more than 40 years. One of the early aid programs under his watch, Food for Peace, provided cornmeal and powdered milk to the mission, which staff members used to bake cornbread for needy people in the area.

One day in 1968, one of Schaffer's parishioners, Marcos, invited him to lunch. "We appreciate the food you give us," he said. "But help us get land to grow our own instead." At that point Schaffer, who had been eating a corn tortilla, realized it was from corn grown on local land. Marcos went on to tell him the Mayans' conviction that tortillas made from corn from their own land tasted better and were more nutritious.

"Padre Gregorio," as Schaffer is known, and the mission staff haven't looked back. Since then, the mission has helped 3,700 families secure their own land. Andres Chajil, who runs the mission's land distribution program, says land is not difficult to come by--local fincas are often willing to sell parcels of land--but it's typically marginal land on steep mountainsides. Families spend years on the waiting list for these less-than-perfect spaces, however, and when they make it to the top they get three acres: two for the essentials: corn, beans, and squash; and one on which to grow cash crops, typically coffee and avocados.

In addition to basic land access, which Chajil's land distribution program addresses, land tenure is a pressing issue facing the country. "You can't think about doing agricultural projects--sustainable agriculture, or environmental projects-without dealing with land tenancy first," says Lydia Ayers, senior program manager of Catholic Relief Services in Guatemala. In the past five years, CRS has assisted more than 15,000 families in nearly 300 communities with securing titles for their land, mainly in the northern part of the country. The organization estimates that 77 percent of Guatemala's small farmers do not have a title or document that certifies them as owners of their land.

A recent study commissioned by the International Development Research Center (IDRC) in Canada notes that in the past 10 years, as part of the peace accords ending the civil war, Guatemala has established an impressive framework to address the issue of land ownership and use. The 1994 Resettlement Accord deals with getting displaced Guatemalans back into the economy and onto the land. The 1995 Accord on the Rights and Identity of Indigenous Peoples proposes a joint government/indigenous commission to handle land claims and land-use decisions for indigenous communal lands. The 1996 Socioeconomic Accord commits the government to developing a land fund, a land registry, and legal reforms in the area of property rights.

But while the framework is in place, the government has, as with many of the peace accord promises, not done much to follow it. The IDRC study reports that both the United Nations' Verification Mission in Guatemala and a group of Guatemalan researchers have concluded that on this part of the peace accords, the government has a record of "inadequate compliance" and has failed to allocate the resources needed.

The study concludes that the government "has not passed laws to reform the property registry or implement new land taxes, there has been no movement toward the regularization of indigenous peoples' communal lands, and nothing has changed with regards to the inequitable distribution of land in the countryside."

The nation's last administration, led by Alfonso Portillo, was characterized by corruption scandals and stonewalling on issues related to the peace accords. "People lost a lot of confidence," Schaffer says. New president Oscar Berger took office in January and fueled hopes of moving ahead with both the peace accords and government cleanup, but many Guatemalans still believe he needs to prove himself. And in the face of overwhelming shortfalls in nearly every sector of Guatemalan society, Berger's job is a big one.

Which makes it even more important that church-run programs advocating for land reform stay strong. "There's a huge amount of need in this country," says CRS's Ayers.

"For me, this is a good example for the next generation" says Chajil about San Lucas' land distribution and fair-trade coffee programs. "When Mayan communities want to start a big project the government doesn't support, we can look to this. It's a big step in fighting for [our] rights."

For more information on fair-trade coffee, go to www.juananacoffee.com and www.equalexchange.com.