Human Rights
The Third Wave
Elan Organics and Why Fair Trade is In
by Nicole Pugh
“Small farmers who produce the product from which we all make a living are themselves living in a terrible cycle of poverty. Economic and political structures perpetuate that poverty. Environmental destruction is one of the byproducts. Yet there is this disconnect for many of us in the coffee business. Few see the connection between this poverty and destruction on one hand, and poor coffee quality on the other. We all want the coffee to be delicious. But we must be willing to pay for it.”
—Karen Cebreros, Elan Organic Coffees
Once upon a time, a goat herder named Kaldi was grazing his flock on the upland plains of Ethiopia. It was a regular day until the herder noticed that some of his goats were chewing on the leaves and red berries of a small bush. Those goats were dancing and jumping around like crazy! Kaldi, normally a very serious man, decided to try a berry and soon he was dancing around too. He took some of the magic “berries” to the local monastery. When he described what had happened, the Abbot believed they were the work of the devil and threw them in the fire. But the berries released such a tempting aroma that the Abbot quickly rescued the beans. Thus was born an industry that would endure many changes through the centuries. Today, the “Third Wave” of coffee drinkers want to know where their coffee is made and by whom. Many of them also want to know that the people who grow, harvest, roast, trade and sell their coffee and the environment that supports it are being treated fairly every step of the way.
Karen Cebreros of Elan Organics in San Diego has been in the specialty coffee business since before there was “specialty coffee.” She began her one hundred percent fair trade and organic business in 1989 and now is a pioneer in the industry.
“People have said to me in the past, ‘You aren’t really a coffee company, you are just an activist using a coffee company,’ but we really are a coffee company,” explains Cebreros. “All the women who cup here are expert cuppers. They have all been judges on competitions. They have all traveled to origin [the regions where the coffee is grown].”
Coffee cupping is similar to wine tasting in that certain procedures are followed in order to grade coffee in the areas of aroma and taste. “Cuppers” are those who judge at competitions and in their operations at home to look for the highest qualities in these categories. Cebreros says that it is important for everyone from the growers to the consumers to understand the difference between high-end and commercial grade coffee and the economics behind each.
Cebreros began her passion for coffee largely by accident. A life-threatening illness led her to make a radical shift in her life and she flew to Peru, where her brother was working in an indigenous village in the Andean mountains. After speaking to the impoverished farmers there, who were working the mountain soil without chemicals, Cebreros decided to take a risk and start roasting and trading in organic coffee. It was a wise choice for the environment, the farmers and Cebreros. Elan Organics grossed $10 million in sales in 2005. Impressive as this is, it is a drop in the bucket compared to the $34.5 billion U.S. coffee industry, the majority of whose revenue still rely on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and archaic buying practices at origin.
“Coffee is the most consumed beverage other than water. 125 million families are in the industry. We are the poorest industry on the planet and one of the dirtiest,” says Cebreros. “Ninety five percent of [sprays on coffee plants] miss the target. And where does it go? It goes on the soil, in the air or in the water supply systems.”
Cebreros made the connection between environmental responsibility and human rights early on in her career.
“I was in Chiapas at an organic coffee conference [in 1990]. It was farmers from all over the world and most of them were dirt poor. They asked this little indigenous farmer, ‘Why did you go organic?’ He said that he didn’t have any choice. He said, ‘I had to go back to farming in harmony with nature because our rivers are polluted, our soils are tired and my children are sick and they are dying. What choice do I have?’”
According to Cebreros, a pound of commercial coffee will sell on the market for eight to twelve cents a pound, a rate that keeps pickers and their families in dire poverty. Elan Organic pays farmers roughly $1.41 a pound. The difference has resulted in more opportunities in coffee-producing communities.
“The average coffee farmer makes about one dollar a day, maybe five hundred to a thousand dollars a year,” says Cebreros. “It doesn’t take much to improve the situation at the farm gate.”
Cebreros has big plans for the future. In 2003, after organizing a trip of industry women to visit coffee farmers in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, she and others started the International Women’s Coffee Alliance. Since then, she has led women’s tours throughout Latin American and India (where she made connections to begin selling organic Indian coffee in the U.S.). In November 2008, it will be on to Ethiopia, to learn and make connections in coffee’s birthplace. In addition, the IWCA formed a global network that has begun marketing one hundred percent women-handled coffee in retail outlets in Canada, and soon the United States. As in most industries, women are the lowest paid and most oppressed workers in the coffee business.
“We are just starting to commercialize now,” explains Cebreros. “The first…was launched at Timothy’s World Coffee and Tea in Toronto. They took coffee from a woman’s co-op in Costa Rica. Everybody who has touched it in the chain is a woman…The women were paid a fair price at the farm gate and the miller was a woman, the exporter was a woman [and] I am the importer…The ultimate goal is to create a program that can be launched onto the shelf in larger chains. [It will be] a whole brand of women’s coffees.”
For more information, visit www.elanorganic.com. Thanks to www.gardfoods.com for information about the Legend of Kaldi.