APECAFORM’s name tells you a lot about the organization’s members. APECAFORM is the Maya-Mam Association of Smallholder Organic Coffee Farmers. Its 472 members are Maya indigenous people who speak predominantly Mam, one of more than 20 languages spoken in Guatemala. They are also smallholder coffee farmers committed to organic shade farming. What the name doesn’t […]
The Santa Anita Coffee Producers Association is comprised of 117 revolutionary ex-combatants in Guatemala’s civil war. They laid down their arms in 1996 as part of the Peace Agreements, but they have never stopped talking about revolution. For decades, they sacrificed to achieve their vision of equality and justice in all of Guatemala. In 1998, […]
For MICHIZA’s 730 members — indigenous smallholders whose families have been farming coffee for generations — massive renovation is the best way to ensure that their past has a future.
Yesterday I suggested that Fair Trade has little to do with quality on the roasting and retail end of the coffee chain. On the sourcing end, however, I believe that there are elements of the Fair Trade model that help certain Fair Trade roasters get a leg up on the competition.
I suggested yesterday that Fair Trade coffee is on a roll. I think it is important to reflect further on the relationship between Fair Trade and quality, as much of what accounts for coffee quality has nothing at all to do with Fair Trade
I have published some critiques of Fair Trade Certification here in recent weeks, and have gotten some thoughtful and even-minded pushback about it both online and off. I feel compelled, as they say in the U.S. Congress, to “revise and extend my remarks” about Fair Trade. In so doing, I will turn for help to one of the great parliamentarians of the 20th century, and a small group of allies working to shape Fair Trade in the 21st.
Counter Culture Coffee made a stir recently when it released its Direct Trade Certified Transparency Report — a worthy accomplishment that broke new ground among Direct Trade roasters. The only thing I have seen that compares to this level of transparency is Fair Trade Proof — a radical approach to transparency developed by Fair Trade pioneer Cooperative Coffees.
The Fair Trade v. Direct Trade debate — to the extent that people are still having it — is fueled by caricatures of each approach that may reflect some grain of truth but ultimately misrepresent the realities of both.
When I recently tried to summarize SCAA for CRS staff and partners in the coffeelands, I realized just what a circus SCAA really is! That’s why we asked our CAFE Livelihoods partner Cooperative Coffees to help us create a farmer’s guide to the event.
