BY FLO JOHNSTON : The Herald-Sun, fjohnston@heraldsun.com;
419-6638
Feb 7, 2003 : 12:19 pm ET
DURHAM -- For many, drinking a cup of coffee is just another early morning ritual, or an opportunity to share break time with a friend at work. At another level, it could be an opportunity to help a coffee farmer in Nicaragua get a fair price for his crop so he can provide for his family.
Coffee is the second most heavily traded commodity in the world, with only oil outstripping it on world markets. During the past five years, an influx of low-quality, inexpensive coffee has driven the coffee market to an all-time low, leaving farmers hard hit in places like Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras and in East Africa and Indonesia.
Their average price per pound has dropped from $1 to less than 50 cents, meaning that growing the crop costs more than they now make, said Peter Giuliano, head roaster and green coffee buyer at Durham-based coffee roaster Counter Culture.
This plunge in price has prompted some churches to set up coffee projects in which their coffee-drinking members are encouraged to buy Fair Trade Certified Coffee. Among the denominations with such projects are the Presbyterian Church USA, the Church of the Brethren, the Unitarian Universalist and the Lutheran World Relief organization.
Fair Trade certification guarantees at least $1.27 per pound to the producing coffee cooperative, providing more money to small coffee farmers in many countries, according to information from the Presbyterian Church’s Web page.
Congregations, like Durham’s Trinity Avenue Presbyterian, participate simply by buying Fair Trade Certified Coffee. The church buys the coffee used for its numerous social occasions directly from Counter Culture, and members are reminded from time to time to look for the Fair Trade label when buying coffee for home.
Triangle Presbyterian recently decided to buy Fair Traded Certified Coffee for its church gatherings, said Jim Pease, an elder who heads the church’s International Missions Committee.
A retired executive with Cigna Health Care, Pease now works as executive director of the Haiti Fund, a nonprofit focused on development projects in rural Haiti.
Pease said that during a recent trip to Nicaragua he had an opportunity to talk with a farmer who grows coffee in a remote area of the country.
"I talked with him about the impact on him of Fair Trade," Pease said. "I went through the arithmetic with him and found he literally does get $1.27 per pound selling through the co-op. What a difference it made; he would be getting 25 cents a pound if he were selling on the world market.
"It does help the people when you buy fair traded certified coffee," he said. "This man was proud. He had a sense of pride because he could bring the money back to the community. He made $3,000 from his coffee crop. It doesn’t sound like a lot to us, but it’s a lot to them."
"Buying Fair Trade Certified coffee may cost more, but when we buy something, we are voting, supporting what we believe," he said, "and helping someone get paid a fair price and feel a sense of pride."
Although Fair Trade coffee is available online through Equal Exchange, a denominational source, a closer source exists here in Durham. Counter Culture’s two labels, Sanctuary and Counter Culture, are sold in area specialty stores.
Giuliano’s company buys coffee beans from co-ops representing small farmers in 20 different countries and also gets involved with the coffee-growing communities.
"We try to get more involved in the communities by traveling and getting to know the farmers," he said. "We try to understand some of their problems and their successes and we communicate to them what we are looking for in terms of their relationship with the environment, the quality of their coffee and social issues."