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WHAT IS... Fair Trade?Robert RomanWhen a man says to you: "The work you do helps me buy clothes for my children so I can send them to school," most of us would listen carefully to what comes next. I did on a recent trip to visit third-world coffee farmers in the northern mountains of Nicaragua. (Don't quit reading if you don't drink coffee. The story of Fair Trade is the same for chocolate, nuts, dried fruits, seeds, grains, vegetables, and more. This trip visited coffee farmers, but was about much more.) Francisco Munoz, Brigdio Sosa, Pedro Haslam, Oscar Ruiz, Hamilton Rivera, Alexander, Profirio, Carmen Diagos, Jose Hernandez, Lupe, Big Chico, Little Chico, Julia, Corinna, and the more than 8600 families they represented in this area all said similar things to us during our 8 days in Nicaragua. Right now, the price of coffee on the world market is about 75 cents below what it costs the average farmer to produce it. You can lose a lot of money fast! But what I do and I get lots of help at it around the world is buy and sell Fair Trade, Organic coffee. And many of you reading this buy it, too. What you help to make happen is that this farmer not only gets the world price, but he gets the 75 cents, too. That is promised and guaranteed to him, so he can not only sell this year's coffee, but also can live his life and produce again next year. That is fair! But it gets better than that. Because these farmers take the time, and put in the effort and, believe me, the dedication to grow certified organic coffee, they are paid 15 cents per pound extra, and then another 10 cents for the quality of their coffee. So these farmers are guaranteed a profit, no matter what the world price is. When the world price is higher, they are guaranteed the higher price as well! Our group, traveling with the Equal Exchange Coffee Company on its annual trip to visit their coffee farmers and cooperatives in Latin America, met and stayed with some of the farmers. No electricity. No running water, hot or cold. The schools, supposedly free, require a uniform for the children, the purchase of the books, the pencils, the paper, a fee for taking the tests, and another for the report card. More than a million children are not in school because of this, and many beg on the streets of Managua. But the children of these organic coffee farmers go to school. More on them in a while. Our commitment to support Fair Trade, Organic coffee allows these farmers to pay for all the requirements of school, improve their housing, and provide a bit more toward a cow, or other items. As a group, these farmers are members of regional cooperatives, which give them the marketing strength to avoid the perils of selling to the middlemen, called "coyotes." If forced to sell to the coyotes, most farmers would make lower than the low world price, but would get paid in quick cash. As members of a cooperative, the farmers pay into a pool each year to build capital for poor times, and for various projects. When we were there, they were building a new processing plant for the early stages of preparing the coffee for export. And the cooperatives also have the financial strength to borrow money at good interest rates to help new farmers get started, to buy much needed trucks, have a laboratory for the quality control and development of their high grade specialty coffee, and many other things no farmer could do alone. I was impressed by the down-to-earth, everyday dedication to the cooperative ideals so desperately needed in this area. We had several long meetings, 2 and 3 hours, where the various co-ops told us about their history, their financial situation and, most of all, their mission and ideals. These were all presented in Spanish, and translated into English for us. And our questions in English, translated for them into Spanish. The farmers themselves formed each of the 3 co-ops we visited, Cecocafen, Prodecoop, and Uka Miraflor. They came together in meetings, recognizing their individual weakness and vulnerability, needing something more, together. Their economic mission was crucial to the success of the entire community. The growth and development of not only organic, but high-grade, quality organic coffee is the focus of the economic mission. High up in the mountains, over 5,000 ft., the quality coffee is grown. Organic coffee is grown more for the environmental friendliness than the extra price it brings. Because many of the farmers are neighbors, and the water in the creeks and streams and rivers flows for all of them, they cannot tolerate water pollution. There is no treatment plant somewhere to clean up the water and pipe it back to them. It is hauled by the bucket for drinking, washing, cooking, watering gardens, and animal care. So there is no water pollution in this area. To accomplish this, much care is taken. When the luscious, sweet coffee berries are first harvested, the juicy outer fruit is removed by a machine similar to a corn sheller. Inside that is a juicy, sticky, slippery layer like jelly. That jelly needs to be washed off with water, but then the water becomes very acidic. Without the consciousness for water pollution, the water would simply be dumped back into the creek. Not here. The water is collected in settling tanks. The sediment goes into the compost piles, prevalent everywhere. The water then goes into holding ponds where a variety of plants grow, and help de-acidify the water. Only then is it used for watering, or other purposes. Similar consciousness goes into fertilizer production. No bagged, granulated fertilizer here. I mentioned the compost piles, made of the jelly-like sediment, animal manures from the farm itself, vegetable wastes, and more. But two other fertilizers were also produced on the farm. One I was familiar with, the growing of earthworms, and the collection of their castings, very rich in nitrogen. A box was built, and in a short time, there was a large quantity of excellent fertilizer. The other fertilizer was new to me, though not the concept of a liquid fertilizer. This concoction contained molasses from the local sugar cane, milk from the farm, and manure from the farm animals. This produced a fermentation that smelled surprisingly sweet. Once finished, the fifty-five gallon drum was diluted and both sprayed on the leaves of the coffee plants, and used to water the roots. Though the focus of this article is Fair Trade, understanding the dedication and commitment of these farmers to the environment and quality of their coffee is part of what Fair Trade stands for as well. It is a two-way contract. We pay for coffee, or chocolate, or figs, or almonds, or the many other crops grown and sold as certified organic, Fair-Traded crops. But in return, we expect the farmers involved to care for and nurture this living, changing entity we call Earth. If you have read my previous article on organic, sustainable agriculture (available on the web at www.altnewtimes.com go to "previous issues" July/August 2000) you would know that this is crucial to me as an expression of the long-term commitment to sustain our planet, forever. We cannot treat our soil like styrofoam to just hold up a crop we douse with chemicals, but the soil itself must be nurtured to provide a true growing medium for our vital living foods. Fair Trade supports much more than just the economic well being of the farmers and their families. This is a critical element, but is only one facet of the multitude of good it does. Each of the three cooperatives had similar missions and programs. They all had a similar economic focus "To produce and commercialize export sales of quality organic coffee to improve the standards for the co-op farmers." This area includes sales and marketing, credits to farmers, environmental issues, processing of the coffee, and financing other base level projects for the farmers. But each co-op went further. They all carried several other major areas of work. Besides coffee, there is the development of other crops with Fair-Trade export potential, namely bananas, sesame seeds and its products, cattle, basic grains, and other fruits. And besides the agricultural efforts, there are youth projects, education, gender equity projects, women's groups, environmental care beyond agriculture, nature and eco-tourism projects. In one area we were in, 30% of the middle age and older women have cancer due to the previous chemical agriculture in the area, mainly potato growing. Since the switch to organic agriculture as a whole, including the export crops and the family gardens, no new cases of cancer have been detected in the younger women. Fair Trade has played a major role here with the promise of better pay for quality organic products. One youth project particularly touched me personally. Little Chico and Alex took us on an orchid walk. They have been instrumental in an orchid rescue program in the Miraflor area. Just 18 years old, these two young men have rescued, with their friends, over 3,000 orchids that had fallen from trees, and would die on the ground. They have built a trail through the rainforest, and replaced the orchids in trees along the trail. My father loved orchids. He had several hundred that he grew, traded, and showed. He had died exactly one year before this trip, and on the walk, I realized that, and dedicated the walk to him. Crying and gasping for breath, I told everyone this story, and later Little Chico said he would be more dedicated than ever to the orchid project, knowing how much it had meant to me. As I mentioned earlier, many crops besides coffee are available in the
Fair Trade network. Also, many countries around the world grow organic Fair-Traded
crops. If you have further interest, here are a few sites to visit to learn
more: Most of all, I encourage you to be aware of the need for this program. Ask at your favorite store which products are Fair-Traded. Be willing to pay a bit more, knowing that our few cents here and there adds up to the difference in poverty or quality life for the 3rd world farmers we support. Take a stand for Fair Trade! Robert Roman is general manager of Nature's Food Patch in Clearwater FL. (727) 443-6703 ext. 223. rroman@naturesfoodpatch.com Copyright (c) 2002 Altnewtimes, Inc.
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