Last week, The New York Times ran a story on the rupture between Fair Trade USA and Fairtrade International and its implications for the Fair Trade movement. In my post on the story, I noted that the reporter made a confusing reference to our role in the coffee certification process: “For consumers who pay attention […]
This post was contributed by my colleague Robyn Fieser, the Regional Information Officer for CRS in Latin America and the Caribbean. – – – – – Running a 500-acre, organic coffee farm deep in western El Salvador’s mountains has posed plenty of challenges over the years for the 89 members of Las Colinas coffee cooperative. […]
When FTUSA decided a few months ago to fundamentally rewrite the rules of Fair Trade for the U.S. market, the news hit the Fair Trade fold with all the force of an earthquake. The aftershocks have been making themselves felt for weeks: position statements by smallholder farmer networks, governance shake-ups at competing certifiers, ranging debates […]
The El Pinal cooperative was established in 1980. During the first 30 years of its existence, the organization paid for its coffee to be processed at a commercial mill. This meant higher operating costs and less control over the quality of their coffee. When the CAFE Livelihoods project started in early 2009, we met with […]
The 5 de junio cooperative in Nicaragua was arguably the most conspicuous success story during the three years of the CAFE Livelihoods project. The cooperative took innovative approaches to improve both the quality of its coffee and the quality of life of the communities where its members live, scoring impressive gains on both counts.
On Halloween, I published a post summarizing everything written here on the Fair Trade for All debate and promised to leave this issue alone for a while. With new information continuing to emerge in this evolving process, it has proven harder than I thought to keep my word. Yesterday I published three more new posts […]
Just over a month ago, Fair Trade USA CEO Paul Rice sat down for a few hours with CRS staff to make the case for Fair Trade for All, the controversial initiative that is re-writing the rules for Fair Trade Certified coffee in the United States. I published the notes of that discussion here, and […]
Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government in Nicaragua may get mixed reviews these days from voters on its commitment to democracy. But during the 1970s, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua was a romantic crusade against dictatorship that united diverse elements of Nicarguan society and served as a beacon to many young people around the world. During the […]
Merling Preza is the general manager of PRODECOOP, a pioneering Fair Trade organization in Nicaragua that she helped to create in 1993, along with Fair Trade USA CEO Paul Rice. In that role she leads 2,300 smallholder farmers in their efforts to forge deeper trading relationships and foster the development of their communities. She is […]
The Las Cruces cooperative was established in 1980 as part of El Salvador’s land reforms. For more than 30 years, the hard-working men and women of Las Cruces produced high-quality Borbon and Pacas varietals from one of the most privileged coffee landscapes in El Salvador, nestled on the northern slope of the Ilametepec Volcano among […]
