The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU)
Ethiopia?s Oromia Coffee Farmer?s Cooperative Union (OCFCU) aims to help small-scale coffee farmers take advantage of the Fair Trade coffee market, the viable alternative trade strategy. OCFCU was established in 1999 in order to help the 100,000 farmer families working in Oromia cooperatives to get through the difficult price crisis. OCFCU comprises 34 cooperatives, cultivates 86,487 acres and has an average annual production of 16,507 tons, is known for its high quality coffee, all of which is heirloom, forest-grown, organic, bird friendly and smallholder produced. In only its third year, the OCFCU is already starting to return 70 percent of its gross profits back to the Fair Trade cooperatives, in order to help coop members.
Coffee farmers would prefer to work their own way out of the current crisis, which is deepening each day. According to Tadesse, ?There are communities that are growing coffee that have never bought clothes for the past three years?. Malnutrition is seen in coffee areas? We have a plan to establish societies to help them save, then to use the money for when they are short of cash to buy food [during the growing season] when there is no harvest.?
Another essential way to fight poverty everywhere in the world is education. Tadesse pointed out: ?The farmers cannot afford to buy [school] uniforms for children, cannot afford to pay even a small amount of contribution to the schools, they cannot afford to pay for food for when they stay in school, because it is 10 to 20 kilometers from their house.? Part of the sales of OCFCU?s Fair Trade coffee is going back to the communities to be used to build schools, which will help to address the problems in the impoverished communities in a country where only about a quarter of the school-aged children attend school.
Fair Trade coffee helps to provide living wages to the farmers, and up to three times as much income as the average coffee producer. This income will help farmers provide for their families, increase their quality of life and allow them to continue working on their farms.
By helping the Ethiopian coffee farmers economically, Fair Trade also provides the farmers with access to greater political power. Furthermore, the farmers learn about the democratic process through the democratically run cooperatives. Decisions connected to development are not dictated from above; instead, Fair Trade represents a ?bottom-up? approach, respecting the rights of people to make their own decisions and thus respecting their dignity and cultural traditions.
Looking at the coffee "supply chain..." Many hands have to touch this coffee before it comes into our Starbucks or Whole Foods, and thus, into our mugs on these cold spring mornings. In the fair trade system, basically, instead of the farmer selling directly to wholesalers or in village/city markets, the farmer will sell his beans to the Fair Trade Cooperative, where they are a member. The cooperative will then take care of packaging the coffee and distributing the coffee on the world market, through a system of alternative channels; this establishes minimum prices and price floors, which will help the farmers and coops to weather downturns in markets or in production, due mainly to crop failure/environmental degredation.
Fair trade is cutting out many levels of wholesalers and middlemen, the people who get very rich, while the farmers stay very poor. I have always been a believer that the person who is doing most of the work, who has the most to lose, should also be the one to have the most to gain; the middlemen are a virus; cutting them out of the equation is a virtue! I'm also a believer that people are willing to pay a bit more for a cup of coffee or a bag of beans that is labeled "Fair Trade." I also am a believer in what I like to call the "Its the least I can do" philosophy of consuming; even if I wasn't interested in helping others, and I just wanted the best cup of coffee for my money, everyone needs to have a BIT of compassion in their hearts and minds. Whats the very least you can do, without interrupting your daily machinery of life? I think (or hope) that we have attained a level of social consciousness that allows us to both want to feel good about ourselves (sometimes selfishness is a virtue) and feel good about helping others through this practice. This is a fine example of sustainable, fair, and virtuous economic development. What can you/I do? Simply, ask for fair trade coffee when at the coffee shop (as if they don't already carry it...maybe in Fargo or Barrow)..and let market forces work their magic.
"In seven brief years, we will have squandered more in the so-called "war on terror" than all the world has ever given in all of its aid to all of Africa for all time...
Too many economists spend far too much time debating grand principles rather than facts and evidence. For years I've been trying to stay practical and focused with regard to global poverty. My position—more aid directly targeted at specific needs—was widely dismissed at the start and has been an object of mirth among some mainstream economists. Three billion dollars per year for AIDS? A global fund to fight pandemic diseases? A 100 percent cancellation of many Third World debts? A mass distribution of anti-malaria bed nets? A fund for an African Green Revolution? All of these are now in development. And sooner rather than later we will begin to invest massively in demonstrating carbon capture and sequestration and other renewable-energy technologies (Japan just posted $10 billion for that purpose for developing countries). Sooner rather than later we will have a fund to avoid deforestation (Norway just put up $600 million for that objective). Let's turn to the "numbers" to discuss whether these things will work, at what cost, and in which institutional manner...
We are at a time when ideas will count—technical ideas to be sure, but also ideas about cooperation and conflict. The frames of reference of our political leaders will matter greatly. If they view the world as us versus them, we will indeed live in a world of growing conflict. If they view the world as facing a science-and-technology-based transition at a global scale, we can achieve spreading prosperity and sustainability. And in the end, interestingly, the politicians will be listening and responding to the world public. Perhaps as in all ages, our fate is truly in our hands."
--Jeffrey Sachs....clips cut from his letters to Martin Wolf, Editor, Financial Times, from Slate Magazine
