Tag Archives: Fair Trade for All

407. “A dignified life”

2014-05-01 Comments Off on 407. “A dignified life”

Today is International Workers Day, also known as Labor Day throughout the coffeelands of Latin America.  Seems like an appropriate day for me to share some reflections on the farmworker conversation I had the privilege to moderate during last week’s SCAA Expo. The post is unusually long because the conversation was uncommonly rich. Of all […]

405. It’s the market, stupid

2014-04-07 Comments Off on 405. It’s the market, stupid

Coffee may have something to learn from the mantra of the generals who ran the War Room during Bill Clinton’s 1994 campaign for president: it’s the economy market, stupid.

383. Stumptown releases Borderlands microlot

2014-02-06 Comments Off on 383. Stumptown releases Borderlands microlot

Stumptown Coffee yesterday released its first microlot from our Borderlands project in Colombia, comprised of small lots from four farms in Nariño. If you are interested in exceptional coffee, where it comes from, or both, we humbly suggest three actions: READ the post below for more detail about the amazing growers behind this amazing coffee; […]

369. Epilogue

2013-07-15 Comments Off on 369. Epilogue

The CRS Coffeelands Blog published perspectives from the intersection of coffee and international development from 2009-2013. We launched the blog because we believe that despite a quarter-century of investment and innovation to get closer to the source of our coffee, “there are still real opportunities for discovery and growth in terms of our understanding of […]

325. Top 10 posts of 2012

2013-01-03 Comments Off on 325. Top 10 posts of 2012

For the second year in a row, the most popular posts to the CRS Coffeelands Blog were related to our coverage of changes in the Fair Trade system: posts on Fair Trade for All took seven of the 10 top spots for 2012.  Rounding out the top 10 were posts on water resource management and […]

323. “Empowerment partnerships” for FT4All?

2012-12-04 Comments Off on 323. “Empowerment partnerships” for FT4All?

I published a series of posts last week that included observations and recommendations for the future of Fair Trade for All based on our experience in Colombia with one of the first Fair Trade Certification pilots for independent smallholder farmers.  What I didn’t include was a description of a strategy we have applied in the […]

322. Recommendations for the future of FT4All

2012-11-29 Comments Off on 322. Recommendations for the future of FT4All

The world’s first Fair Trade Certification pilots with independent smallholder coffee farmers are winding down in Colombia.  CRS supported one of those pilots. Based on that experience, we offer three recommendations for future pilots: two to ensure they generate the kind of rigorous, results-based evidence we believe should drive decisions about the future of Fair […]

321. Observations on the FT4All pilot

2012-11-27 Comments Off on 321. Observations on the FT4All pilot

This week, CRS is issuing a series of observations based on our experience in Colombia with the first Fair Trade Certification pilot with independent smallholder farmers, and recommendations for the future of Fair Trade for All.  From our perspective, the pilot has been the source of some encouragement as an approach to smallholder organization where […]

320. The future of FT4All

2012-11-26 Comments Off on 320. The future of FT4All

When we announced here back in May that CRS would support a Fair Trade for All pilot project with independent smallholder farmers in Colombia, we identified “influence” as a leading motivation: We believe we are uniquely positioned to independently document the impacts of FT4All’s pilots and influence the evolution of the Fair Trade model. Nearly […]

319. Please call me by my true names

2012-11-19 Comments Off on 319. Please call me by my true names

CRS has been working to support smallholder coffee farmers — both in the coffeelands and in the U.S. marketplace — for the better part of 10 years.  For most of that time we have kept a low profile, working quietly to help farmers increase coffee productivity, quality and income at origin and  expand the market […]