A Cooperative Coffees Newsletter for and about FAIR TRADE

Issue No. 8 Summer 2005

Fair Trade Futures Conference, Chicago: Coming Soon!

If Fair Trade is at the core of what is important to you and what you do in your community, your church, your workplace, or in your business, the Fair Trade Futures Conference – Sept 30 to Oct 2, 2005 – in Chicago is the place where you can share, learn and contribute to the Fair Trade movement. Companies, producers, activists and individuals whose life values and personal vision match those of Fair Trade are invited to attend and help build and deepen the vision of the Fair Trade movement. The Conference Planning Council especially welcomes companies that are just starting to engage in Fair Trade and want to bring these principles into the core of their activities. Come, listen, learn, ask your questions and get inspired to join us on the journey to living a Fair Trade Life…

The Fair Trade Futures conference will feature workshops designed to explore best practices and future directions for the movement. There will be opportunities to learn at the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels. Join us to consider topics such as: "From Dirt to Shirt: the Garment Supply Chain and what it means for Fair Trade"; " Building a Bandwagon: How to make Fair Trade Hip"; and "The Stories Behind Our Food: Fair Trade Rice from Thailand". In addition, there will also be coffee and chocolate tasting, music and more!

The conference will be a venue for orientation, skills building, and networking that will propel Fair Trade forward. The focus of this conference is bringing together people and organizations committed to Living a Fair Trade Life and to achieving social justice and change through the market, to celebrate the best, learn from our experiences, to create strategies to work collaboratively to strengthen the Fair Trade movement in North America.

“I am already so inspired and motivated by the conference, even just in the preparations,”says Conference Coordinator and FTRN Director Jackie DeCarlo. “From the range of workshop proposals to the curiosity of consumers, I sense a real energy and eagerness to come together ready to create a future of mission-based Fair Trade."

This conference is expected to bring together people and organizations committed to Living a Fair Trade Lifestyle and to achieving social justice and change through the market, to celebrate the best, learn from our experiences, to create strategies to work collaboratively to strengthen the Fair Trade Movement in North America.

For more information about this exciting event, visit:

http://www.fairtradefutures.org

Cooperative Coffees 2005 Members’ Meeting in Guatemala

Another year older and another year wiser…. For 2005 Cooperative Coffees has decided to organize its Annual Member’s Meeting in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, initiating the gathering with four days of workshops and producer information exchange between our Latin American trading partners.

“This has been a tumultuous year for Fair Traders and it seems like the ideal time to stop and ask some questions about Fair Trade practices,” Cooperative Coffees producer relations manager Monika Firl explained. “That is the primary reason behind our decision to gather our members together with producer representatives in Guatemala this September.”

The week-long meeting will include a mix of workshops, excursions and discussion, certain to result in lively debate around Fair Trade issues of pricing, relationship, quality control and community development. We are pleased to include special guest presenters such as: Market Risk Management Specialist Guido Fernandez, FLO Liaison Office Director Kieran Durnien, TransFair Canada Public Education staff member Chantal Harvard, MayaCert Director Noé Rivera and Organic Outreach Coordinator Rodolfo Guzman, and the financial and business planning perspectives of our friends at EcoLogic and CRECER, Guatemala. We also look forward to hearing the sage perspectives of our producer partners from each of the six Latin American countries where we are currently purchasing green beans, as well as insights from Bishop Ramazzini, an important emerging Fair Trade voice out of Guatemala, during a special reception celebrating Fair Trade.

Feedback has been very positive so far, and we are expecting a full house. We look forward to this myriad of opinions and perspectives and are expecting to have this dramatically shape our practices and policies into the future.

Cooperative Coffees Making Financial Gains….

They say that growing too fast is a good problem to have. But, from a financial planners’ perspective – it is a problem none-the-less. What began as an interesting experiment for a few Fair Trade roasters has turned into a viable alternative for small-scale roasters to buy Fair Trade coffee directly from rural producer cooperatives. Since our first year of operations, purchasing several containers from four coffee cooperatives in Central America; we have expanded our reach to 13 producer partners from nine countries in Latin America, Africa the Pacific Basin. During the 2006 harvest, we will purchase over 750 tons of coffee from these partners! Likewise, Cooperative Coffees’ sales to members have increased over 50% annually from $461,237 in FY 2001 to $2.37 million in FY 2005.

To finance this growth, we constantly seek to diversify and deepen our financial relationships. Our growth “problem” led us to some very attractive solutions. For the 2006, we expect to have an equally expanded financial portfolio, in partnership with some of the best known social lenders in the business. More details to come in the 2005 Fall edition of this newsletter.

Announcements:

Producers, Poets and Musicians–On Sale Now!

Tucked away in the Nicaraguan highlands, coffee farmers create passionate music about their rich and vibrant culture. The farmer-musicians were recorded live in various locations – from kitchens to remote community centers. The musicians’ songs – some more than 300 years old – demonstrate how music and poetry is intrinsically and historically entwined with farmers’ lives and communities.

All wholesale profits from the sale of these CDs will be transferred directly to CAFENICA to benefit the musicians and their communities. CAFENICA represents 95 community-based coffee cooperatives and some 6,300 farming families. Congratulations to the talented musicians and Larry’s Beans for making this creative project a reality.

Baseball – Second Place Finish puts the Matagalpa Indigenas on the National Map

The 2005 National Series has been an emotional rollercoaster ride for baseball fans in Matagalpa.

“With yesterday’s victory, Matagalpa celebrated as if they had just won the championship,” sports commentators observed following the July 16th win that kept Matagalpa in the final 7-game series. An alternating win-lose pattern for the past month, brought the National Series title down to the last inning of the last game. But in the final and decisive game, “Our Home Team” (the Matagalpa Indigenas) lost out to the Leon Boer to end up in second place during this XXXVI National Championship competition.

Baseball is Nicaragua’s number one sport and considered a national passion. Organized teams and tournaments are recorded in Matagalpa as far back as 1913. But despite the great interest and the great capacity of Matagalpan players, the team has not always found the support it needs. With Matagalpa being primarily a coffee economy, the on-going coffee crisis has forced huge displacement and regional economic difficulties, resulting in the lack of financial support for the team.

Because of this, the municipal government along with regional organizations, such as CECOCAFEN joined forces to create the Foundation for Sports in the Northern Region.

“It is important for the health of our society in the Northern region, that we find the means to offer sports and cultural activities for our families and children to become involved with,” explained CECOCAFEN General Manager Pedro Haslam. “That is why we have backed this initiative of the Foundation.”

With this support, the team has been able to get back in form and went on to participate in several special tournaments, including the 2004 Nicaragua Cup and this year’s Major League National Series – thereby bringing their “King of Sports” back to the Matagalpa Chale Solis stadium.

At Cooperative Coffees, we were pleased to be able to contribute “our grain of rice” to the team. We congratulate everyone’s efforts, and look forward to next season.

Fair Trade Briefs:

Dean’s Beans and Polus Join Forces for Justice

Dean visited Alberge de Buen Pastor Jesus (Sanctuary of Good Shepard Jesus) in Tapachula, Chiapas with Marta Castro, a young Ecuadoran woman working with Polus Center, an organization providing services and hope to disabled people in Nicaragua and Ethiopia.

“Tapachula's main claim to fame is that it is the most important cargo rail trunk line going to the north,” Dean explains, “and as a result, the main passageway for a flood of men, women and children heading towards the mythical El Norte, as the U.S. is known. Every evening around midnight, "La Bestia" (The Beast), pulls slowly into the rail yard as it grabs additional cars for the ride north and hundreds of people who clamour on board. On the way north, many will fall asleep during the long hauls between stations, some will fall off, some will lose their grip on the ride and slip off into the night with La Bestia crushing arms, legs and chests as they go.

We visit the hospital, where three other victims wait for Dona Olga to bring the drugs they need. They must pay for their own drugs, even for the transfusion blood. These are some of the "improvements" brought about by Structural Adjustment and Privatization. One of the men, Benito, is only sixteen. He looks around the hospital room in total bewilderment.

Two weeks ago, he was heading north to help his family. Now he is in a hospital bed he can't pay for, in a country he is not allowed to be in, and is missing his left arm and right leg. It is difficult to even imagine the despair that leads to such a journey.

To learn more, visit www.deansbeans.com

BONGO JAVA adds New and Old Faces to Staff

Bongo Java Roasting Co. added a new and an old bean-head to the mix. Sandy Livingston is our new wholesale manager. She comes from New Orleans with a Master's in psychology and a background in business. No truth to the rumour that she'll be splitting her time running BJRC and counselling Bongo Bob. More realistically, if she tried, she won't have time to run the business!

For those old timer Cooperative Coffee people, our other addition is a familiar face. Kaffeine Kate Sage re-joins Bongo World. Kate was a co-owner of BJRC and its sister cafe Fido before selling out and moving on to San Diego. She returns in September to run the kitchen at Grins Vegetarian Cafe (another member of the Bongo World Empire).

Cooperative Coffees first “Official Visit” to FLO

During a whirlwind Europe tour, Monika was able to spend a day at the International Headquarters of FLO in Bonn, in Germany.

“It was an excellent opportunity to put faces to the names and to finally meet some of the people behind the scenes, working to make Fair Trade certification an effective option within the Fair Trade world of trade,” Monika explains. “As an added result, we have been able to open more direct communication with representatives of FLO, who have been generous with their time and knowledge to help me better understand their process.”

FLO is the international umbrella organization that sets standards and oversees certification for Fair Trade labeled products around the world.

Larry’s goes the Extra Mile for Eco-Delivery

“When I was a kid, I always wanted to ride the short bus (but never got to),” Larry recalls. “So when I had the chance to buy this 1994 Ford Short Bus for the shop, I jumped on it!”

This a converted diesel engine running off of both diesel - regular dirty-d or bio20 or bio100 - AND it runs off of vegetable oil.  Yes, olive oil, canola, etc. Instead of using fresh oil, we go out and collect USED vegetable oil.  We collect from Chinese restaurants, Chic-Filet, fish houses, and our favorite peanut-brittle manufacturer.

Rudolf Diesel, a German physicist designed this engine in the 1890’s to run on veggie oil.  At the 1900 worlds fair in Paris, the engine was showcased and it ran on peanut oil. There are no harmful pollutants: no acid rain, no asthma. Lock yourself in the garage with this baby and you won’t kill yer’self.  You’ll just smell like a fish fryer, donuts, potatoes chip, or whatever used to be fried in the grease! There you go, used car, used grease; it’s the ultimate recycled delivery machine!