buying “a share” for a better future

Leonardo Garcia is a farm worker at a coffee estate called “La Revancha” (The Revenge, in English), in Nicaragua.  This farm is part of our pilot program, which was developed to help the coffee industry better understand if and how Fair Trade can help improve the lives of millions of farm workers who work the coffee

Working for quality of coffee and quality of life

Eliover Garcia, a foreman at Hacienda Venecia in Colombia, has been working in the coffee fields since he was 8 years old. His humble origins make Eliover fully appreciate everything in life. “Working on the coffee fields has allowed me to put food on our table and satisfy my family’s basic need, for which I’m

Working together will bring peace to my land

This post comes from my colleague Griselda Barraza.  As part of the work we are doing to include independent smallholder coffee farmers in Fair Trade, Griselda interviewed Fabian to learn more about his participation in the SCAA show back in April. Fabian Andres is 26 years old and he is already a leader in his

My first coffee show

This post comes from my colleague Griselda Barraza.  She just attended her first SCAA coffee show.     Preparing for the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) show was a lot of work. We spent several hours getting all the logistics ready for the group of farm workers and independent small farmers that we brought

Leonardo says hi from Nicaragua’s coffee fields

Last week I visited a farm in Nicaragua participating in one of our pilots. One of the workers, Leonardo, is studying English on Saturdays Sundays when he doesn’t have to work .  He is saving everything he can to pay for classes, and is seeking new opportunities in his life and to meet people from other countries.  I

seeing the future in the past

Fabian, a 25 year-old small-scale farmer from southern Colombia, began a two day journey from his village to Portland, OR in the U.S. to attend the Specialty Coffee Association of America conference this past April.  He spent five days in the largest coffee conference in the world meeting with coffee buyers, NGO’s and other farmers.  At our

Florinda and the ‘older crowd’

At the end of a sunny and hot day in the coffee fields, I met Florinda and other farm workers in the Mogiana region in Brazil in one of my trips this year. Despite their long day, we had a humor-filled conversation that made us all smile and laugh. When I was talking to her,