Third World program: Putting a face on your next cup of coffee

Published April 29, 2004 12:00 am - AMERICUS -- The next time you go to take a sip of your favorite cappuccino, try to sense more than the aroma. "Think a little deeper about who is behind the coffee," said Bill Harris Jr.

AMERICUS -- The next time you go to take a sip of your favorite cappuccino, try to sense more than the aroma.

"Think a little deeper about who is behind the coffee," said Bill Harris Jr., president of Cafe Campesino, a fair trade coffee import and retail business he co-founded in Americus in 1998.

Harris was appealing to about 100 students and other guests at a Third World in Perspective Program at Georgia Southwestern State University Wednesday. The program was entitled "Fair Trade and Farmers: Dialogue with Coffee Producers from Latin America and Africa."

Cafe Campesino is one of 17 Fair Trade coffee roasters from cities in the United States and Canada who make up Cooperative Coffees, also co-founded by Harris and based in Americus. Collectively, Cooperative Coffees has established Fair Trade relationships with nine coffee cooperatives from seven different producer countries.

The co-op purchases its coffees and conducts its business adhering to a strict criteria. Its first priority is to pay a fair price to its producers. The producers, in turn, are far more able to attain and maintain a future for themselves and their families.

When Cooperative Coffees was founded in 2000, said Harris, the co-op inputted seven containers with 280,000 pounds of green beans that year. This year, they are bringing in 35 containers he said.

Although the success of these Fair Trade businesses is apparent, it barely represents one percent of all coffee imports into the United States, said Harris. And the price of coffee has crashed in recent years, making it even harder for coffee growers to survive.

To help raise awareness of the issues, coffee farmers from Nicaragua, Guatemala, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Peru joined members of Cooperative Coffees and other Fair Trade advocates on a road trip through Georgia this week. Their mission: To show consumers how their coffee purchases have an immediate impact on the lives of struggling, small-scale farmers and how their buying decisions can enable them to earn a dignified, livable wage.

Wednesday morning, the group met for about an hour with former President Jimmy Carter at his office at The Carter Center in Atlanta.

"I can't tell you how excited everyone was to see how interested he (the President) was in what we are doing," said Harris. "Before we left, he said, 'I want you guys to figure out how I can help you.'"

Three of the coffee producers spoke to the group at Georgia Southwestern Wednesday evening. Each of them explained how Fair Trade so positively impacts lives.

"I saw an ad in Atlanta that said, 'Beans for peanuts.' That gives us a picture of what the coffee crisis looks like," said Raymond Kimaro of Tanzania, general manager of the Kilimanjaro Native Cooperative Union, Africa's oldest coffee cooperative.

In 1997, coffee was selling for 1,200 shillings (slightly more than U.S. $1) per kilogram in Tanzania, said Kimaro. In 2003, a kilogram of Java could be bought for merely 500 shillings (about 40 cents).

The fallout from the market crash has been devastating, Kimaro explained. 

"Children are going to school with torn clothes. And with globalization, health care is no longer free," said Kimaro. The loss of those 700 shillings was hard enough, but now families must pay for their medicines as well, he said.

"They are running away from their farms. But in so many areas of our country, coffee farming is all that there is," Kimaro said. "If farmers have no money, farmer organizations collapse, and that leads to total collapse."

In 1993, Kimaro said his cooperative employed 80,000 people. Today, there are only 40 employees. They have their own processing plant, but it is only operating at a 20 percent capacity.

"The younger generation is running to town to get employment that doesn't exist," he said. "There are no jobs in town."

"It is not a healthy situation at all," Kimaro said. "If nothing is done, I don't know what will happen. We've been growing coffee for 80 years.

"We need to develop and keep trading relationships that are fair."

Carlos Reynoso, a coffee farmer from Nicaragua and member of Manos Campesinos, a support organization to seven community-based producer groups selling their coffee to the fair trade market, founded in 1997. He spoke about the Fair Trade Labeling Organization (FLO).

"FLO exists so that our business can be considered fair, and that is fairness for the producers, roasters, importers and consumers," said Reynoso. "Together we form a solid team."

That team must follow a certain criteria, he said. First, the decision making process must be democratic. And second, the economic process must be transparent.

FLO tries to guarantee a median base price, explained Reynoso. For conventional coffee, that means about $1.26 per pound, and for organic coffee, about $1.41 per pound.

Another criteria of fair trade is supplying farmers with pre-financing. Without financial assistance up-front, many farmers would never be able to produce, he said.

The biggest purpose of fair trade, said Reynoso, is to develop long-term, sustainable relationships between all the players -- and these relationships must be direct.

"When there is a long, complicated transaction chain, the process can be broken into many pieces," he said.

"By building these direct relationships, you come to understand that coffee is not just a commodity anymore," added Harris. "This makes it fair for all."

In 1995, coffee farmer Teodomiro Melendres began working with 20 other farmers in a cooperative in Peru. Today, 4,000 farmers are involved, he said, of CEPICAFE (Central Piurana de Cafetaleros). Melendres spoke on the powerful impact fair trade has made in his country.

With fair trade practices, families are able to increase their economic situations, he said, adding he was one of five children.

"The family income has increased by $200 to $300."

It is commonplace in Peru that a farmer works alone, but by working together, they are able to produce more and of a higher quality, said Melendres.

The benefit of pre-financing has also been enormous, he said.

"Coffee growing in our region of Peru is very remote. Access to financing is nonexistent," he said. "Now, 4,000 producers have access to credit and they can now be choosier about who they sell to."

Additionally, through training provided by fair trade practices, farmers have learned to diversify their production. They are able to grow healthier food crops for their families, as well as fruit trees for sale at the local markets. Farmers have also begun to process sugar cane, said Melendres.

"This has all generated jobs for families," he said. "When there aren't other alternatives, young people leave the area. Now, thanks to fair trade, young people are again interested in producing coffee through the fair trade market."

Fair trade also positively impacts the environment, noted Melendres. And social services in his region of Peru have improved as well.

Many who would not have had the chance before are now going to technical school of university. The area has a health clinic now, and the coop offers a fund to give farmers and their families a proper burial, he said.

"But the most important thing about fair trade is, we have elevated our own self-esteem and have been able to assimilate into a society that was once unavailable to us," said Melendres.

Philip I Szmedra, an assistant professor of economics at GSW, closed the program with a brief discussion about what has led to the drastic drop in the price for coffee.

He noted that in the United States today, coffee is selling for 75 cents per pound. In 1997, it sold for $2.50 per pound.

Better growing techniques and the fact that Vietnam has grown from producing no coffee 10 years ago to being the third largest producer in the world today, have led to a chronic over-supply, said Szmedra.

"Too much supply is outstripping the demand," he said. "And only a fraction of the $4 you spend on that frappucino goes to the farmer."

So, "Put a face on your next bag of coffee," said Harris.