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The article compares the process of conventional and fair trade coffee production. In Guatemala, most coffee is produced by small-scale farmers. Whole families are often involved in the day-to-thy operations, and some farmers hire seasonal employees during the harvest. In the conventional market, farmers sell their cops on the street to local middlemen, called coyotes in Latin America. Even though coyotes only pay the C price, they pay immediately. In the fair trade system, cooperative members take their ceresa fruit to the cooperative. Before the farmers receive payment, they must wait until the coffee is processed and sold, and the money from the sale is distributed by the cooperative managers. The ceresa fruit that farmers harvest from their fields must be processed before it is ready for export. Some fair trade cooperatives have brought this processing in-house, but many must ship the ceresa to an outside vendor and pay to have it done. Both the fair trade and conventional coffee markets rely heavily on brokers and importers to handle the shipping and tariffs involved when bringing coffee into North American and European countries.