I have spent about 9 months cumulative in the coffee-producing region of Nicaragua, known as Jinotega, and have been fortunate enough to spend some time with sm

I have spent about 9 months cumulative in the coffee-producing region of Nicaragua, known as Jinotega, and have been fortunate enough to spend some time with small coffee producing farmers (fincas), and have followed the entire production process that they have in-country from drying the beans to roasting and packing. I have also spoken to various coffee importers here in America, in my local metro area, about how they purchase, both fair-trade and not. I have also spent about a year cumulatively in Haiti, and worked for a Haitian manufacturing company. I hiked from sea level to the highest point in Haiti, and saw a lot of rural areas in the middle portion of the country, but I didn't see much coffee growing in Haiti personally, although I did drink a lot of Rebo brand Haitian Coffee. I would agree that the technical level of coffee production in Nicaragua is likely higher, and that they do at least appear to have a larger export market. I have heard stories about how it's challenging to export agricultural goods from Haiti to the US, in general. Technically it's an ITAR restricted country, which is not a good starting point at all, for any kind of exporting. Beyond that, while both Nicaragua and Haiti have had massive amounts of political instability, it's just more expensive to import all sorts equipment to Haiti, because it's an island. You can get all sorts of coffee grinders and roasters in Nicaragua by driving it down from Mexico or wherever, but in Haiti it would have to be brought in by boat or from the Dominican Republic. This creates an expertise/knowledge bottleneck. Multiply this expertise/knowledge bottleneck out over every industry, and every piece of equipment. Also the geography and infrastructure doesn't help. Nicaragua has a huge highway leading from the coffee producing region, so it's an hour drive from Managua. Back in 2004 it took more like 4-6 hours to drive there from Managua. In Haiti...you have nothing of the sort...it's just crappy roads, pretty much everywhere. Multiply that cost over the cost of importing vehicles, parts, the lack of mechanical expertise, etc...everything is just more expensive. So it's also a distribution problem. That's basically how I see Haiti in a nutshell, compared to Nicaragua, not just in the coffee realm. The comment about, "things being done for charity rather than business," is both true and not true...it's an over-generalisation. There are a lot of people making money and producing things in Haiti as well. I don't have an official breakdown of charity dollars vs. non-charity dollars.