Last year at this time, we reflected on the root causes of this crisis: Volatile markets, corporate consolidation, the ways that the coffee industry itself is rooted in the structures of colonialism and capitalism, designed to extract and exploit small-scale, often indigenous, farmers for maximum profit. The ongoing climate crisis means that these farmers who are already getting squeezed by low prices and marginalized by racism and capitalism are getting squeezed even harder. That much remains the same since last year. Since last year, we have also seen a swell of stories tying these pressures to the factors pushing farmers off their land and out of their homes in Guatemala and Honduras, stories that get summed up in U.S. headlines as the migrant crisis.

The Coffee Crisis and the Climate Crisis are Linked

This year, small-scale coffee farmers issued a clear statement: “We cannot live on $0.90 per pound,” referring to the current commodity market price for coffee.  As farmers across Latin America are faced with the choice to abandon their coffee fields or starve, the coffee industry has issued a preliminary look at what a fair income might be. A recently released white paper studying coffee farmers in Colombia puts the price at $2.38 per pound—not for organic coffee, nor for specialty grade coffee, but for basic commodity-grade coffee (the stuff that lands in a Folgers’ can). The bottom line is that companies need to pay farmers more.

The white paper goes on to rank challenges and solutions from most impactful to least. One of the greatest obstacles facing paying farmers a living income? “Focusing too much on (short term) maximizing shareholder value.” While the authors of an industry white paper may phrase it more delicately, the message is clear: one of the greatest obstacles to fair livelihoods for farmers is corporate greed and an outsized focus on their profits.

The climate crisis has taken a front page spot in the news over the past few months. The Amazon rainforest and forests around the globe are burning. Climate strikers have filled the streets around the world, calling for action and for those in power to consider the next generations. Yet the climate crisis is happening now for far too many people. Coffee farming families are just one example of the ways that climate change hits communities of color first and worst. Writing this as the UN Climate Summit goes on, the words of Greta Thunberg come to mind, connecting the “fairy tales of eternal economic growth” with climate catastrophe. Climate activists, researchers, and small-scale coffee farmers agree: business as usual cannot continue.

Take Action for International Coffee Day

This International Coffee Day, it’s time to take action to support fair livelihoods for coffee farmers—and a future not just for our morning cup but for humanity. There are three actions you can take right now:

Back Fair Incomes for Coffee Farmers

Each year, people spend $200 billion dollars on coffee. Just 6% of that makes it back to coffee farmers. Too many corporate solutions miss the mark when they suggest that farmers can work their way out of this structural crisis by growing more coffee or growing it more efficiently. Solutions like those benefit buyers but fail to fix the fundamentals of a system that is stacked against farmers. More investment in infrastructure is good, income diversification is vital, and so are other long-term initiatives to shift the balance of power away from the extractive, colonial models that the coffee industry is built upon. But there is no dodging the truth: Companies need to pay farmers fairly for their coffee. While costs of production vary regionally, only a few of the largest and most mechanized farms in Brazil are breaking even at $0.90 per pound. For non-commodity grade coffee to have a future, things need to change.

Sign the pledge supporting small-scale farmers in their call for fair pricing: Sign here.

Support Community-Led Projects to Combat Climate Change

Around the globe, frontline communities are devising solutions to the climate crisis. And coffee farmers are no exception. Grow Ahead helps fund projects designed and implemented by the communities who own them, bringing together people around the world to support farmer-led projects. At Cooperativa Norandino in Peru, Grow Ahead brought together individuals and brands to help fund the co-op’s vision for a community-led reforestation project. They planted over 200,000 trees—and built a nursery to tend more into the future, planning for diverse seedlings to feed families, provide income, shade cover, and sequester carbon too.

Now they are launching another project with Pangoa cooperative in Peru. Driven by the community’s vision, this project focuses on the reforestation project of the co-op’s women’s’ committee—part of their vision for combatting climate change and building economic opportunities for women.

Too often, development projects and carbon offsetting measures are driven by outsiders, by someone else’s idea of what a community might need. The solutions that Grow Ahead supports are developed by—and for—small-scale farmers and their communities—they are the ones who know what needs to be done, too often they just need financial support.

Take the next step and support this kind of grassroots approach to combatting climate change and building resiliency. Support Pangoa’s reforestation project here.

Join a Campaign Putting People and the Planet Before Profits

Low prices and the climate crisis are not just a coincidence. They are the consequence of a system that is built to value corporate profits above all. With yet another white paper on the pile pointing to the focus on shareholder returns and short-term corporate gains as one of the big obstacles to fair livelihoods for farmers, it’s high time to take action. Nestle, JAB Holding Company (owner of a vast array of brands including Keurig Green Mountain, Caribou and Peet’s Coffees, specialty coffee companies like Intelligentsia and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, as well as Krispy Kreme, Snapple, Dr. Pepper), Smuckers, Kraft Heinz, and Starbucks are just a few of the ten companies that control nearly half the world’s coffee. This consolidation is not unusual in our food system. Instead, we see it all around. Big Food companies use their market leverage to exploit communities around the globe—low prices, exploited labor, environmental extraction are all part of their model. To tackle the coffee crisis, we need to turn our attention to the larger structural problems: an unjust food system designed to exploit.

For years, fair trade advocates have tried to go campus by campus to build commitments—and contracts for—fair trade coffee. But the Real Meals Campaign takes that further, recognizing that the problems facing small-scale coffee farmers are similar to those facing so many communities around the globe. Add your voice to those calling on Aramark and the big foodservice companies to commit to making change in how they source not just their coffee, but all their food. Sign the petition here and look for more ways to get involved this fall.

If you are looking for coffee choices that support small-scale farmers and their initiatives, check our list of Mission-Driven Brands. That’s one action you can take every day, International Coffee Day or not.

The post International Coffee Day – Connecting the Dots between Unchecked Capitalism, the Climate Crisis and Forced Migration appeared first on Fair World Project.

Coffee is a staple luxury for many. Yet behind that morning cup, and hidden in the price increases that many coffee drinkers are seeing, is a grim reality. Too many of the people who grow coffee can’t afford to live. Low coffee prices are not new news. We’ve written of them before (most recently here). Indeed, it was a price crisis even worse than this one in the 1990s that caused a minimum price to be a centerpiece of fair trade certification as it developed.

Coffee Growers in Crisis

The crisis brewing in coffee didn’t happen overnight. In addition to ongoing price volatility, coffee farmers are seeing climate change transform their farms and the harvest cycles they rely on. Coffee doesn’t grow just anywhere. There is a narrow band of mostly high elevation land around the equator where conditions are just right. Now, as rainy seasons shift, predictable patterns are getting disrupted. Both droughts and massive storms are becoming more frequent, disrupting coffee plants’ blooming and fruiting cycles. Or rain damages fruit on the trees, reducing quality—and thus price.  A changing climate also means new pest and disease pressure; the fungal disease la roya has been wreaking havoc on coffee plants and decimating yields.

Farming is neither easy nor predictable for farmers around the globe. And, as grim as the impact of climate change has been over the past decade, there are plenty of stories of ingenuity and resilience. Farmer-led solutions exist and have been making a difference. If you clicked through these links to read the amazing regenerative, organic techniques these farmers are implementing, you will quickly also see that they require work, resources – and faith in the future of coffee farming. Bottom-of-the-barrel prices provide farmers none of those things. Instead, more and more is being required of coffee farmers just to produce their crops, even as prices fall.

Coffee is not the only crop impacted by the climate crisis. Staple foods like corn are also being hard hit, forcing people to face a stark choice: Go hungry or leave their land and migrate.

Small-Scale Farmers Feel the Brunt of the Crisis

Not all coffee farmers are feeling the pressure equally. The estimated cost to grow a pound of coffee varies across Latin America from $1.05/pound to $1.91/pound for conventional commodity-grade coffee,** based on a plot size of three hectares (7.4 acres). That last bit of information is important, but also often skipped over as the statistic gets cited. The less land a farmer has, the more expensive it is to produce coffee—some fixed costs remain the same. The average plot of land a coffee farm family cultivates varies greatly. In Colombia, most farmers have fewer than two hectares, while in Brazil the average is 7.5 hectares—the larger the farm, the lower the cost of production.

Market factors come into play as well. Coffee is traded around the world in U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, the Brazilian currency is currently quite weak against the dollar, meaning that that $0.90/pound market price translates to more like $2.00/pound. The Financial Times offers an excellent explanation of just how currency fluctuations are another way that market prices impact producers, but the consequences are clear. Once again, small-scale farmers are most impacted by the volatility of global markets.

“We Cannot Live on $0.90 per Pound.”

Those are the mounting pressures that lead to the statement that the members of SPP Global issued: “We cannot live on $0.90 per pound.” The coffee industry has been grappling with elements of this issue for years. There are studies chronicling poverty in coffee lands, white papers looking at the problem of cyclical hunger even among those who grow specialty coffee. There is an ever-mounting number of company initiatives from McDonald’s to Starbucks seeking to make coffee more “sustainable.” And in grocery store aisles, certification labels make the same pledge—with varied impact. Yet far too few of them actually address price.

Instead, far too many focus on getting farmers to improve quality and run their farms more efficiently. The biggest “sustainability” certifications, Rainforest Alliance/UTZ Certified have no minimum price. Neither does Starbucks’ CAFÉ Practices.*** Collectively, we continue to require more of producers without increasing minimum prices.

There is a great deal of talk about eco-friendly coffee, about “green” coffee, about “sustainable” coffee. But at this point, we are not paying prices to make coffee a bare minimum, break-even proposal for those who grow it. That is not and can never be sustainable – or just.

Farmers Can’t Keep Footing the Bill for our Coffee

The challenges facing coffee farmers are enormous and systemic. The coffee trade has been built on colonial models of extraction—farmers’ labor is treated as cheap or free. When stories of hunger or of forced labor on coffee farms come out over and over, the only true surprise is that we don’t hear of them more often. We can’t expect coffee farmers to keep footing the bill for our morning cup.

Even as coffee prices fall for farmers, coffee drinkers see prices stay steady or increase. Part of that is that the price of a pound of green coffee is just a fraction of the cost of a latte. And part of that is that farmers capture just 6-10% of the $200 billion dollars of coffee sales annually. Even as coffee farmers make a plea for their lives and livelihoods, investment advisors are noting that Starbucks shareholders are doing well, with a nod to the low cost of coffee. Most small coffee roasters aren’t getting rich on coffee, but they certainly aren’t losing money at the rate that coffee farmers are expected to. It’s clear that the system needs to change.

While there are no easy answers, there are a few steps to take today.

• Add your name to the petition in solidarity with small-scale coffee farmers: Sign here.
• Where do you drink coffee every day? Ask your coffee supplier where your coffee comes from and how much the farmers get paid.
• Looking for coffee that pays farmers fairly? Check our list of Mission-Driven Brands. All members of Cooperative Coffees and coffees that are SPP certified pay a minimum of $2.20/pound for organic coffee, and often more.

*Arabica coffee from around the world is traded based on the price set on the ICE Futures market or New York Stock Exchange, often referred to as the C Market. That price, often abbreviated to the “C Price” is the basis for most coffee contracts with the price per pound often calculated as the C Price plus a “differential” for coffee from different origins and premiums for organic or quality. Most, although not all, fair trade minimum prices for coffee are also set relative to the C Market: the commonly expressed “fair trade minimum price” is actually whichever is higher of that minimum price or the C price + fair trade and organic (if relevant) premiums.

**Coffee is graded on a very specific set of standards to determine the score based on the number of defects, etc., found in the green coffee. Commodity grade what you’d be likely to find in a can of Folgers or the like. Specialty grade coffee is what goes into basically all of your local coffee shops’ brew. The price for specialty grade coffee is often calculated based on the C price with additional money for quality.

***Although it is unlikely that Starbucks is buying coffee at the ultra-low commodity market price, they have not been transparent over the last few years about how much they are paying.

Banner Photo Credit:  Rodrigo Flores on Unsplash

The post Low Coffee Prices – A Dire Call to Action appeared first on Fair World Project.

Another thing that hasn’t changed: 70-80% of the world’s coffee is grown by small-scale farmers, a statistic that hasn’t really changed over time. My old back-of-a-napkin calculations used to estimate that one farm family might grow enough coffee in a harvest season to yield 40-pounds of roasted, export grade coffee. That’s probably less coffee than you drink in a year.^**

Consolidation in the Coffee Industry

While coffee cultivation is still mostly a small -scale production, the coffee industry is not. Instead, consolidation in the coffee industry continues to grow. In our recent report, Fairness for Farmers, we note that “Just three companies roast 40% of the world’s coffee and five companies control over half of the trade in coffee,” citing data from 2014.

And in the past four years that trend has only continued. The massive JAB Holding Company now owns not just Keurig Green Mountain, Caribou and Peet’s Coffees but specialty coffee companies like Intelligentsia and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, as well as Krispy Kreme, Snapple, Dr. Pepper, and several coffee-intensive bagel chains like Einstein Bros.’ and Bruggers’ Bagels.  Nestlé continues to be one of the biggest in the coffee market with classic names like Nescafe and Taster’s Choice. Reach for a fancy Blue Bottle coffee or stop in at any natural food store and pick up some Chameleon Cold Brew—those too are now Nestlé products. And a deal to distribute Starbucks’ coffee outside their stores further cements Nestlé’s grip on the coffee market. What appears on the shelf as diversity is, in reality, ever more consolidation.

Unfair Trade

This consolidation hasn’t directly translated into lower prices for farmers directly—yet. Instead, industry watchers are pointing to a consequence that is perhaps even more troubling: the extension of payment terms that these coffee giants are demanding from their supply chain partners. Instead of the standard “net 30” that you might see on a bill, indicating that you have 30 days to pay in full, these behemoths are asking for 180 days or more—time that someone else has to foot the bill for their profits.

Access to cash is a key issue when talking about coffee. One of the key fair trade principles (and a standard in fair trade certifications) is for roasters to provide pre-harvest financing to coffee farmers on request. Committed fair trade companies like Equal Exchange have made this a cornerstone of their sourcing, meaning that they are paying for part of their coffee months in advance of receiving it. This sort of arrangement is key in supporting producers and sharing a bit of the risk—and the cost of financing.

You can see where this is going: bags of coffee from these two companies end up side by side on the shelf. One of them has paid for that coffee months ago (and possibly borrowed money from the bank to do it), one of them may not have even paid for the coffee yet. One of them has access to massive distribution networks and economies of scale. The other does not. Yet, on the shelf, the expectation is that the price is the same. It’s an unequal playing field that only stands to increase the power of a few mega-corporations.

Exploitation and Low Coffee Prices

Inequality isn’t a new thing in the long, dark history of coffee. Colonial plantations, labor extracted from small-scale farmers via harsh quotas—every coffee-growing community I’ve visited to has their own story of what this crop has meant to them in the long history of European conquest.  Fair trade grew up in response to these great historic inequities.

Small-scale farmers built cooperatives, organized to gain economies of scale and a little bit of leverage. We talk often about the importance of the commercial relationships and the solidarity formed with mission-driven businesses, and how they’ve grown a fair trade movement. Yet as this so-called market niche has grown, so too have the many who would cash in on consumer’s goodwill.

The Starbucks plantation where workers endured deplorable conditions carried more than one ethical certification (their own C.A.F.E Practices label and UTZ Certified).*** Yet too often these top-down, corporate-led attempts to cleanup supply chains fail. They fail to protect workers, fail to make lasting change, and fail to live up to the trust that consumers put in their ethical claims. Unfortunately, it’s not that surprising. Low prices and huge inequities lead to exploitation. Fail to address the root causes, and once again the symptoms recur.

Tackling the Root Causes

What does it take to tackle the root causes of these inequities in coffee? What do we need to do so these headlines are not still cropping up 15 years from now? Plenty of people who are far wiser than I am continue to be confounded by the questions. There are no easy answers.

Yet, despite the bleak landscape outlined above, there are some inspiring projects aimed at tackling the root causes of the issues.  In Nicaragua, coffee farmers are exchanging knowledge with partners in Mexico to diversify their farms and their sources of income, making them less dependent on just one crop.  Coffee farmers from Peru and throughout Latin America are engaging in farmer-to-farmer trainings to develop new climate resiliency strategies—and new options for economic development. Coffee importer Cooperative Coffees has ditched the notoriously volatile commodity market as the basis for any of their buying contracts.

There are a few things that you can do, even as you drink your morning coffee:

• Support small-scale farmer led projects. Grow Ahead is a crowdfunding platform that specifically targets projects that may be difficult to fund through conventional lenders. A big bank is much more willing to lend money to one of those tried-and-true mega-corporations above. Meanwhile, projects that may make real change in communities struggle to get funding. Grow Ahead’s current campaign supports a reforestation project at Norandino Cooperative, a fair trade coffee and cacao co-op in Peru.
• Support independent, fair trade roasters. These are the ones struggling against the massive market consolidation. They’re also the ones partnering with coffee farmers in many of the inspiring projects above. There are plenty to choose from, look for one near you here.
• Organize against corporate control of the food system. A broad coalition of organizations has come together as the Campaign for Real Meals. Their goal: to get some of the biggest food service companies in the country to commit to measurable, actionable standards for real food. Sign onto the petition and join the movement!

^*In the U.S. it’s celebrated September 29^th, in the rest of the world, October 1^st. Pick a day, or just celebrate the whole weekend!

^**The math here: In the U.S., average coffee consumption is three 8oz. cups of coffee per day, or about 136 gallons per year. While brewing methods vary, a really rough rule of thumb calculation would be that you could get 1 gallon of coffee per pound. Calculate how many family farms it takes to fuel your life!

^***Note that the Starbucks plantation in question was certified by their own C.A.F.E. Practices certification as well as UTZ (recently merged with Rainforest Alliance), not fair trade. Traditionally, coffee plantations have not been eligible for fair trade certification although some other crops (notably, tea and bananas) allow them. Four years ago, Fair Trade USA split from the global consensus and started certifying plantations, a controversial move.

The post Low Prices and Exploitation: Recurring Themes in Coffee appeared first on Fair World Project.

In an open letter, Rob Cameron, CEO of Fairtrade International, wrote: ?I, the staff at Fairtrade International, and the entire global Fairtrade network sincerely regret FTUSA?s decision to pursue its own approach, rather than continue working within the global system. It is a decision they have taken themselves, and we have to respect their choice.?

Here at the Fair World Project (FWP), Fair Trade USA?s move raises many questions for fair trade producers in the Global South, as well as for fair trade advocates, businesses, and consumers. A major point of contention in the split and ?Fair Trade For All? is FTUSA?s unilateral decision to initiate certification of Fair Trade coffee on plantation and hired labor operations. FTUSA intends to open other commodities, like cocoa, to plantation and hired labor for certification as well. Fair trade was established on the values of supporting small-scale, disenfranchised farming communities, most often organized in democratic cooperatives. Despite claims to the contrary, hundreds of thousands of small producers organized in cooperatives still lack access to fair trade markets. To continue to make progress and expand the benefits of fair trade, these producers must be given priority and support when considering further expansion of the fair trade system. Without strict standards and implementation, the expansion of fair trade to include plantations in coffee and other sectors will most certainly erode standards and dilute fair trade?s impact.

For more details, read FWP’s Statement on Fair Trade USA?s Resignation from Fairtrade International (FLO).

Perhaps the most relevant of posts on FTUSA?s decision to resign from FLO has come from the three key fair trade producer networks, including the Network of Asian Producers (NAP), Latin American and Caribbean Network of Small Fair Trade Producers (CLAC) and Fairtrade Africa. Their perspective can best be summed up in CLAC statement, asserting “we as CLAC join the regret caused by the departure of FAIRTRADE USA and we express the fact that we cannot share its new vision of expansion, since it threatens the empowerment, development and self-management of small organized producers.”

Equal Exchange, fair trade pioneer and coop, supports the position of the fair trade producers networks.? Equal Exchange’s Rob Everts “In our opinion, this represents a continuation of Transfair?s years-long practice of playing to its own set of rules, almost always to the benefit of large scale players in the commodities world and against the interests of Fair Trade?s original primary stakeholders:? organized groups of small scale farmers.”

Vancouver Fair Trade did a good job summarizing some of the background information regarding the split. Read more to learn up on the issue. CRS has also done a good job of unpacking the implications for fair trade producers.

The post Roundup on the Fair Trade USA/FLO Split appeared first on Fair World Project.

Fairtrade International has responded to the crisis with new coffee premiums, minimum prices and standards. Committed fair trade roasters and importers continue to support producers for the long run.? Taking the long view, the recent spike in coffee prices may merely represent a “natural correction” in the market. Coffee prices may have been artificially low and the market is simply catching-up.

While this issue is far too complex to distill into a handful of simple variables, it might be useful to look at two clear culprits in the coffee market roller coaster.

Climate change

The climate is changing and having disastrous impacts on farmers. While the world debates Cap and Trade and Kyoto, farmers around the globe have consistently raised voiced their concern for over? ten years. ? Coffee producers in particular have been hammered by increasing erratic? weather conditions. Recent reports from Mexico and Brazil to Uganda and Colombia have laid bare the crisis situation in the coffee lands.

Speculation

Speculation in the commodities market, including coffee, has contributed increased instability in the market. Even Starbucks is apparently feeling the crunch. Big investment banks are essentially betting on the price of food, from corn to coffee, leading to increases in food prices and threatening food security across the globe. The Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, among others, has done a solid job on analyzing the cause and effect of commodity speculation.

Go further

For a good overview of the situation, take a listen Equal Exchange’s Todd Caspersen’s video below.

The post Coffee prices explained, sort of appeared first on Fair World Project.

1) What is the mission of Higher Grounds Trading Company?

Higher Grounds Trading Co. was founded to provide a direct link to growing cooperatives and the coffee consumers by working directly with small-scale growing cooperatives around the world. We view our work as not only providing some of the highest quality coffees available on the planet but also to work toward creating positive social and environmental change both in growing communities and here at home. We’ve formed a non-profit – On the Ground – which works to support the construction of health care clinics, sustainable water projects and schools in coffee growing countries. By purchasing all of our beans via Cooperative Coffees (the only 100% fair trade coffee importing cooperative in the world) and working to build sustainable communities we pursue a wholistic approach to more fair trading practices and global partnerships. We have a roastery that services wholesale accounts with an attached coffee shop in Traverse City, Michigan. In 2010 we also began a partnership with Canaan Fair Trade and the Palestinian Fair Trade Association to import Fair Trade, Organic Olive Oil.

2) What are the challenges to running a 100% fair trade business?

The biggest challenge is working to differentiate from companies that do not have the same level of commitment to sustainable development, social justice and environmental sustainability but attempt to message their companies in a way that misleads the consumer. Consumer education, sustainable business practices, and time in the field is essential to a business like ours. In addition to the higher prices we typically pay for our beans, this adds to the overall cost of doing business that other companies not committed to sustainability do not have. Thus, with leaner margins we must find ways to be innovative to compete with those companies that are not dedicating a fairly significant cost of doing business to the betterment of their relationships both environmental and social, with their trading partners.

3) Please share a success story from one of your producer partners.

The first co-op that we started purchasing from was Maya Vinic – a co-op of Mayan people in the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. They and their neighbors had been victims of a horrific massacre in 1997 of 45 mostly women and children that were praying and fasting for peace. When we formed Higher Grounds our first coffee to purchase was from Maya Vinic. Together with a couple of other coffee companies in Cooperative Coffees we were the first to import fair trade coffee from the Co-op. Back then they had collected their coffee in a wooden, dirt floored shack a stones throw from the massacre site. Today they have an amazing processing center, roasting facility, and office. They sell to the national market, are opening a cafe in San Cristobal, and have improved the lives for their growers through fair trade sales. In addition to purchasing at fair trade prices, Higher Grounds gives .15 cents above the fair trade, organic price back to the co-op in the form of a social premium which is used by the co-op to improve its organization. In the past 4 years of the program they have started a high school class for their farmers, replaced the engine in the truck used to collect coffee from the growers, and purchased land for use as an organic test plot to educate farmers on how to grow better organically. Via the Chiapas Water Project (Now part of a broader organization, On the Ground, an organization we founded to provide potable drinking water to communities in Chiapas, we also funded the construction of a water project for a small village of 100 people in one of the growing communities. While we feel there has been a lot of advances in the communities that make up Maya Vinic, there are many more things that need to be accomplished and we will continue to work with the communities each year to improve the quality of life for the growers and their families.

3) What are some of the current trends in fair trade and organic coffee?

Current trends of fair trade and organic coffee are two fold – each of which heading in opposite directions. One one hand we see a watering down of the overall concept of fair trade. As large companies see the market value of fair trade they have edged in on the market, utilizing the fair trade niche as a way to improve the perception of their brand in the overall market. This is unfortunate as they have also had the opportunity to influence the meaning and trade practices of fair trade via the strategies employed by certifiers. This approach is based on selling mass amounts of coffee purchased at the lowest fair trade price possible – a minimum price which growers that I have spoken to in a number of countries have unanimously stated is not fair.

At the same time you have a number of 100% fair trade coffee companies bucking this corporate approach to fair trade and instead have banned together to form a more committed, version of fair trade that encompasses being 100% fair trade, transparent, accountable, with direct relationships and communication to the producers who grow their beans. This group of roasters are forming closer relationships to influence the overall meaning of fair trade so that it becomes more fair for growers and less of a marketing advantage for large corporate entities that are not committed to the tenants of fair trade in their overall business practices.

4) Fair trade seems to be at a crossroads. What do you see as the future of fair trade?

In my eyes, the future of a fair trade system that is just and sustainable for the producers will be one which focuses on increasing the fair trade/organic base price set to growers and a more general deepening of international solidarity and direct relationships roasters/ consumers and growing cooperatives/ growers to improve community and cooperative infrastructures. Also, a more transparent and accountable system will hopefully be designed that will differentiate the companies that are 100% fair trade and allow consumers to know what the business practices are for the companies which adhere to fair trade principles. I believe advances in communication technology will also enable those committed companies to have a more direct, real time and long term partnership with growers that is based up fairness and equality in business relations.

To get to this point we need to revamp the fair trade certification system to make it more fair for growers and easier for consumers to know which companies are committed to fair trade and not just using it as a marketing advantage.

5) Please share with us your experience in the Run Across Ethiopia project.

We founded and completed the Run Across Ethiopia – a 250 mile run from the capital city of Addis Ababa to the coffee growing region of Yrgacheffe in order to raise mass amounts of funds and education to build schools. I decided to run this distance and enlist other runners, activists, artists, educators, and business people in order to be able to raise the funds and infrastructure to build three schools in a country where less then half the population is literate.

Reflecting back on an effort that had the support of 9 other runners, a board of directors and volunteers at On the Ground, a dozen drivers, translators, organizers in Ethiopia and over 800 individuals, corporations, foundations, organizations, schools, and churches which all worked together to reach all of our fundraising and running goals, I can’t help but be astonished! In addition to funding the construction of three schools, funds were used to support a school lunch program in one of the most impoverished areas of the capital city, Addis Ababa. Street children will also get informal education thanks to the funding of the Gorumsa Project – which is supporting runners from Team Tesfa to educate homeless children in the capital city of Addis Ababa.? Just as important, On the Ground has made long term relationships to continue work in various communities throughout Ethiopia.

It is hard to verbalize my favorite memories. Thanks to the runners, media team (many videos brought to you by Jacob Wheeler and his immersion journalism and James and Jamaica Weston Lynn from Weston Films) and Bill Paladino (OTG ED), many of them are documented in blogs and video! Here are some of those memories with direct links to the experience.

Celebrating Ethiopian Christmas with a concert by Seth and May at Mother Theresa’s Home for the Dying and Destitute was the first of many moving moments of the expedition. We wanted to ensure that before the run started that runners, support crew, and media team would be cognizant of the level of poverty and its effects on the population. Like any country, an excellent gauge of the level of poverty and lack of a country’s health care resources is by examining what takes place to the forgotten in the capital city. There is no better place to look to and support then the Missionaries of Charity, Home for the Dying and Destitute, which help those on the street with serious illness.

When the run was set to begin, it felt nothing short of a dream. After a rather tedious process of getting all runners, support team, drivers, and equipment in place and out to the starting point, we were met by a couple dozen of our Ethiopian counterparts, including Olympic gold medal 5000 meter winner, Million Wolde. Seth Bernard got the dozens of people together in a circle to say an opening prayer then Timothy Young set us on our way to Yrgacheffe.

Each mornings began with a simple breakfast at the break of dawn and a word from one of the runners. After a quick word, we started right at dawn to avoid the packs of heinas that roamed in the night and to try to get done running before the midday sun. Throughout the expedition, young Ethiopian children would join us from town to town. Eventually, some of the runners led them in their favorite chants or taught simple school lessons. The end of each days’ run was usually accompanied by dozens of locals bewildered by the spectacle of a bunch of foreigners running through their village. The children would evidently join the high fives that accompanied the end of a run and the runners did their best to entertain the children as they stretched.

After 9 days of running we had entered the coffee growing region of Sidama. The team saw first hand why they had dedicated so much time to training, fundraising and participating in the run when we visited the community of Hase Gola a day later. The coffee growing community greeted us with a huge celebration of song, dance, and speeches to commemorate the run and construction of a secondary school funded by the Run Across Ethiopia. One of my favorite moments of the whole expedition was to watch Bizuayehu dancing with the Hase Gola choir as the crowd quickly joined the dancing and singing.

The final day saw us entering the community of Afursa Waro, a community of a couple thousand and home to the Negele Gorbitu coffee cooperative where we purchase the beans for our Ethiopian Yrgacheffe Light Roast. After our ritual of opening words and music we headed out for our final 6 miles. With four teachers from the school in Afursa Waro, other roasters from Cooperative Coffees, family, friends, and local villagers, we traversed down a dirt road through villages dotted with coffee trees until we reached the school at Afursa Waro.

The community of Afursa Waro and the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union held a ceremony in which they honored runners with the clothing of the regional elders. Local musicians also performed traditional music for everyone.

Without the support of the hundreds who made this possible we would never have been able to reach our goals! The Tesfa Foundation and Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union who helped organize the expedition, all of the volunteers at On the Ground, and the nearly thousand people who donated to the cause (including events at Food for Thought, Pangea’s Pizza, Crema, Little Bo’s, Global Village Collective, and many more organizations!)? showed that international solidarity is not only possible but a viable way to make real social change!

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