The Catholic Voice
January 10, 2000 Volume 3, #1
By Carrie McClish

Coffee growers like Santiago Rivera are asking Americans who can't get through the day without a quaff of cappuccino or espresso to consider a new brand of joe that not only satisfies the palate but makes a difference in the lives of the small farmers who harvest the aromatic bean.

Rivera, who recently visited the East Bay, belongs to an export cooperative in his native Nicaragua that produces gourmet coffee under a growing grassroots movement known as "fair trade."

The fair trade movement, which began in Europe in the 1980s, consists of a coalition of organizations committed to helping improve employment opportunities and ensuring that farmers and other small businesses in developing countries receive fair prices for their products.

Coffee is a major focus of the movement because it is the second most traded commodity - behind petroleum - in the world. While small farmers make up 15 million of the world's 25 million coffee producers, they receive the smallest portion of the profits. The average coffee farmer earns less than $800 a year.

The farmers, who barely earn enough to support their family between harvests, do not produce enough to export their crops directly to the buyers. As a result they are forced to sell their harvest at extremely low prices to so-called mid-level traders, who keep a large percentage of the profits for themselves.

Fed up with this exploitation farming communities began banding together by forming cooperatives in the early 1980s to pool their expenses and export their own crops. The coops found buyers through fair trade organizations who certify importers who agree to buy their coffee from them rather than plantations. The buyers agree to pay the growers $1.26 per pound for their coffee which is almost double the average current price.

For Santiago Rivera the fair trade market brought dramatic results. Unlike Juan Valdez, who has pitched Colombian coffee in TV ads for decades, Rivera didn't have a mule to transport his coffee beans to buyers in town. For years he and other coffee growers in his Nicaraguan community lugged 100-pound bags of the crop down a winding dirt road on their backs.

Buying a mule to do such backbreaking work was out of the question. Rivera said the money he got for his beans didn't even cover basic needs for his family. Most of his eight children had to drop out of school by the fifth or sixth grade to work to help the family stay afloat.

"Life was hard before," said the lanky man whose pensive eyes shone from his haggard face. "It was difficult to survive."

That changed when Rivera's cooperative of 15 farm families entered the fair trade movement. Now, after three years of producing fair trade coffee, Rivera can buy clothes and shoes for his children, put more beans and rice on the table, strengthen a dilapidated house, and purchase mules to move the coffee beans down the mountain. His children can also remain in school.

Despite these advances, difficulties continue, he said through an interpreter. "People don't all have sufficient money. They need the financial and moral support through fair trade."

Hurricane Mitch, which devastated much of neighboring Honduras, also had a negative impact on many Nicaraguan farms as well, said Rivera, who lost nearly half of his coffee crop.

The cooperative is currently renovating six acres of land to replant the lost crop, but it will take four to five years for those plants to produce a harvest.

As this rebuilding takes place, the cooperative is working with Transfair, USA, an Oakland-based organization, to build consumer support for fair trade coffee in the U.S. Currently Transfair is leading a campaign to convince East Bay city governments to offer fair trade coffee in their offices and agencies. the organization also hosts visiting farmers like Rivera and arranges for them to speak with community groups and the media.

Transfair, a member of Fair Trade Labeling Organizations, provides independent certification of buyers which ensures that fair trade practices are being followed. Transfair, for example, helps monitor the paperwork between coffee importers and cooperatives like Rivera's to make sure the growers receive the fair trade price.

Fair trade coffee sells between $7.50 to $12 a pound in Bay Area stores, a price comparable to other gourmet coffees. Church and community groups can also buy fair trade coffee at wholesale prices in larger amounts. For more information contact Transfair USA by phone at (510) 663-5260 or by visiting their website. Consumers can identify "fair trade" coffee by looking for coffee bags that bear the "Fair Trade Certified" label. Fair Trade certified coffees are sold at Berkeley Bowl and Uncommon Grounds in Berkeley and Safeway stores in Oakland (Broadway), Pleasant Hill, Alamo and Hayward. For a full listing of Fair Trade coffee roasters and retailers check this Transfair web page.