Colombian coffee farmers are vital cultivators of one of the world's most profitable products, yet they can't even taste the fruits of their labor -- nor have the financial stability to support their families.

In Colombia's Zona Cafetera, otherwise known as its coffee zone, Colombian coffee farmers want their voices to be heard.

Despite the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (CTPA) implemented two years ago, it hasn't been a balanced or effective solution; in fact it's considered a primary cause of the recent farmer strikes that swept the country, Occupy.com reports.

A contributor to this state of unease and financial co-dependency is the threat posed by giant corporations like Nestlé.

Nestlé has helped to foster "an extreme monoculture" in many rural areas of Colombia where coffee is the only 'mono-crop' cultivated across hundreds of farms in the mountainous region.  

This 'mono-crop system' puts the coffee farmers at a disadvantage having only one crop to live off, but that's the way multinational corporations operate.  Farmers who produce additional crops other than coffee on their farms are unappealing to large companies who refuse to work with them; therefore, they prefer to take huge amounts of coffee from a few very large producers.

"Free market economists claim that entering into a bulky, international purchase benefits both parties: the idea being the more you sell the more you make, despite selling at a lower price. However, in this case, farmers don't necessarily get the best price for their product as they find themselves in the tight grip of the big coffee firms," Occupy.com adds.

"Nestlé has a huge presence in Colombia, but it has no fair trade policy to ensure its coffee producers are paid a living wage."

What are they paid then?

According to Oxfam, the farmers are paid around 24 cents per pound of coffee beans. Consumers in rich countries pay $3.60 for that same amount: an extraordinary mark-up of 1,500 percent.

When it comes to unions, "Nestlé is also accused of employing aggressive tactics."

According to the Sinaltrail (National Union of Food Industry Workers): "Nestlé creates terror in the community, destroys the unity of the workers and misinforms the members of the union."

Given the hold Nestlé has over Colombia's coffee farmers, they can be underpaid and powerless because they have to depend on their major buyer.

"And because those farmers are now economically forced to plant only coffee beans, they are losing knowledge about other, previous farming techniques and the ways to use their land to produce varieties of crops and livestock," Occupy.com points out.

Besides a co-dependency with Nestlé farmers have to contend with the world price of coffee. Occupy.com's research indicates that Colombia's coffee farmers "are getting undercut by recent developments in Asia, especially Vietnam, Cambodia and others in the region are lately getting serious about growing and exporting coffee, and global prices are plummeting as a result. Colombian farmers now receive just half of what they were paid for beans only a few years ago. Some are so underpaid they can no longer buy food to support their families."

Occupy.com spoke with British-born employee Solomon Slade, who works on a coffee farm in Chinchiná, a tiny town 12 hours by bus from Colombia's capital, Bogotá.

"The saddest thing is that the vast majority of the country's highest quality coffee is sold for export," Slade said. "The perception of Colombia is [that it has] great coffee. But most Colombians buy very bad quality coffee. You're more likely to find better brands in a supermarket in London."

"It is a shame to hear farmers talk about their best produce as 'export-quality'. Farmers rarely taste it themselves, they don't know much about what they're producing," he added. "They tend to buy coffee to drink from small shops rather than dry and roast their own beans; they sell their coffee without realizing they could hold back some of their produce, grind it up and drink it themselves. Their way ends up more expensive. It costs more to sell their product in bulk and then buy bad quality brands from a Colombian supermarket."

Pros with Nestlé:

Occupy.com points out that while there are a lot of negatives about this co-dependency on Colombia's coffee farmers, there are also some pros as well that should be mentioned.

"The company only works with farmers who do not deforest all of their land, as chopping down too many trees would cause ecological problems for both parties down the line. The firm also offers suggestions about the least harmful pesticides farmers can use on their crop, and they help provide education in farming techniques.

Nonetheless, Colombian producers are struggling to support their families. And as their situation worsens year to year, due to the plummeting world coffee of price and farmers' reliance on huge corporations like Nestlé, more strikes like the ones carried out in recent months can be expected events in the future."