Just Coffee Just Trade
September 22, 2008
Jody L. Ipsen
In times of global apartheid and neoliberalism, millions of migrants spurred on by poverty, while some wash up dead on the shores of Spain and others found decomposed along the US/Mexico border, travel to distant countries in search of work.
According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “Three percent of the world’s population (191 million) lived in a country other than the one in which they were born in 2005, with one third having moved from a developing country to one that is developed, one third moving from one developing nation to another, and another third originating in the developed world.”
With North America hosting more than 45 million migrants as of 2005, other countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal and Italy have somewhat embraced the migrants, while many other countries have created paths to legalization.
However, in the United States, with the divisive polarization among Americans regarding the estimated twelve million Latin Americans living in the country illegally, a unique organization has created just solutions for the impoverished conditions in Mexico.
Straddled between the Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Mexico border in the southeastern region of the Sonoran desert, Immigration and Customs Enforcement are steadily erecting muros (walls) to stop the migration of men, women and children from Latin America.
Along Border Road, a dusty washboard that snakes up hills and around rock formations parallel to Mexico’s train tracks, the construction of steel fencing, vehicle barriers, stadium lighting, infrared cameras, and motion detectors seems strange considering the relationship between the two friendly nations. However, these obstacles only push the flow of migration into more remote and hostile regions.
Rev. Mark Adams, US Coordinator and Pastor for the bi-national Presbyterian Program, Frontera de Cristo, in Douglas, Arizona says, none of these provisions address the root causes of the immigration problem: poverty.
He is a tall, thirty-five year-old man from Clover, South Carolina. In his southern twang, he says “At one time, I was one of two people in Clover, NC who spoke Spanish. Me and the Spanish teacher. Now there is a host of Latin American families residing there.”
At his office in Douglas, an old bungalow with grey-green trim on a residential street in Arizona, he serves up coffee, but not just any coffee, “It’s coffee with a conscience.” The roasted Arabica beans, cultivated from Chiapas, Mexico, hang in the air. The furnishings are spare save for the large mission-style dining room table where he conducts business. The wooden table is covered in a Mexican blanket with bands of bold red, yellow, green and blue.
Adams, with his broad smile, speaks about the events that have since transpired into Just Coffee and Just Trade.
“Ironically, the notion of Just Coffee began in a coffee shop in Loveland, Colorado at his regular Tuesday morning breakfast club. There at breakfast, I talked about an incident that occurred along the border, when the men at the table told me, ‘You’ve got to do something.’”
Rev. Adams understood his mission, borrowing the micro-credit model dating as far back to the signing of the Marshall Plan, and Frontera de Cristo Border Ministries, Daniel Cifuentes, a former coffee farmer working in the maquilas in Agua Prieta, Tommy Bassett, a former maquila manager), became widely popular by Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, both Nobel Laureates, for their social and economic developments in Bangladesh and beyond.
Under the auspice of the Presbyterian Church, Frontera de Cristo Border Ministries, Daniel Cifuentes, a former coffee farmer working in the maquilas in Agua Prieta, Tommy Bassett, (a former maquila manager) and Rev. Adams, Just Coffee sprouted an economic plan with coffee growers in Chiapas.
According to Rev. Adams, “Just Coffee is focusing on the direct causes of economic migration into the US. We are sure that providing economic incentives to remain on cherished homelands with friends and loved ones will prove much more humane and effective than all the fences, cameras and agents.””Why move if there are opportunities and the potential for financial success and family satisfaction at home?”
The Just Coffee cooperative and Frontera de Cristo developed a model in which the value of roasting, packing, and sales is added to the coffee produced by the coffee community of Salvador-Urbina, Chiapas, Mexico.
“This value rises to about 400% of the value of the green product paid by fair trade intermediaries such as Equal Exchange, and ten times that paid to the vast majority of small producers in the conventional market. All the profits remain within Mexico to contribute to the growth of the cooperative and to economic development.”
Surprisingly, the organization has fueled the economy of the small coffee village, and Rev. Adams admits, “has had a positive effect on the quality of life as well as the sense of dignity and justice prevalent in the families involved.” There is now potable water, cell phone coverage, education for the children and basic necessities that were, otherwise, non existent.
In contrast to the success of Just Coffee, a startling report published by the USDA on the success of NAFTA, David Williams, states, “Economic transition away from agriculture is inevitable for many small-scale agricultural producers. Future policies should focus on generating off-farm employment for those who need it, improving trade opportunities for the 15 percent of Mexico’s producers who are globally competitive and improving the productivity of the 35 percent who have the potential to compete.”
While the migration from Latin America continues, despite the billions of dollars to secure the border, small villages that were self sustaining through centuries of hard labor from toiling the soil, now find themselves without opportunities to compete in the global empire. Villagers are desperate to feed their children, and with the growing numbers of impoverished people in Mexico and further south, Just Coffee offers a Just Solution to the inequities among the haves and have nots.
Just Coffee has expanded its operations with Just Trade, creating other coffee cooperatives in Veracruz, Nayarit, and Haiti, replicating the successful micro-credit model.
To order delicious, organic and shade grown coffee contact them at http://www.justcoffee.org/
September 22, 2008
Jody L. Ipsen
In times of global apartheid and neoliberalism, millions of migrants spurred on by poverty, while some wash up dead on the shores of Spain and others found decomposed along the US/Mexico border, travel to distant countries in search of work.
According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “Three percent of the world’s population (191 million) lived in a country other than the one in which they were born in 2005, with one third having moved from a developing country to one that is developed, one third moving from one developing nation to another, and another third originating in the developed world.”
With North America hosting more than 45 million migrants as of 2005, other countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal and Italy have somewhat embraced the migrants, while many other countries have created paths to legalization.
However, in the United States, with the divisive polarization among Americans regarding the estimated twelve million Latin Americans living in the country illegally, a unique organization has created just solutions for the impoverished conditions in Mexico.
Straddled between the Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Mexico border in the southeastern region of the Sonoran desert, Immigration and Customs Enforcement are steadily erecting muros (walls) to stop the migration of men, women and children from Latin America.
Along Border Road, a dusty washboard that snakes up hills and around rock formations parallel to Mexico’s train tracks, the construction of steel fencing, vehicle barriers, stadium lighting, infrared cameras, and motion detectors seems strange considering the relationship between the two friendly nations. However, these obstacles only push the flow of migration into more remote and hostile regions.
Rev. Mark Adams, US Coordinator and Pastor for the bi-national Presbyterian Program, Frontera de Cristo, in Douglas, Arizona says, none of these provisions address the root causes of the immigration problem: poverty.
He is a tall, thirty-five year-old man from Clover, South Carolina. In his southern twang, he says “At one time, I was one of two people in Clover, NC who spoke Spanish. Me and the Spanish teacher. Now there is a host of Latin American families residing there.”
At his office in Douglas, an old bungalow with grey-green trim on a residential street in Arizona, he serves up coffee, but not just any coffee, “It’s coffee with a conscience.” The roasted Arabica beans, cultivated from Chiapas, Mexico, hang in the air. The furnishings are spare save for the large mission-style dining room table where he conducts business. The wooden table is covered in a Mexican blanket with bands of bold red, yellow, green and blue.
Adams, with his broad smile, speaks about the events that have since transpired into Just Coffee and Just Trade.
“Ironically, the notion of Just Coffee began in a coffee shop in Loveland, Colorado at his regular Tuesday morning breakfast club. There at breakfast, I talked about an incident that occurred along the border, when the men at the table told me, ‘You’ve got to do something.’”
Rev. Adams understood his mission, borrowing the micro-credit model dating as far back to the signing of the Marshall Plan, and Frontera de Cristo Border Ministries, Daniel Cifuentes, a former coffee farmer working in the maquilas in Agua Prieta, Tommy Bassett, a former maquila manager), became widely popular by Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, both Nobel Laureates, for their social and economic developments in Bangladesh and beyond.
Under the auspice of the Presbyterian Church, Frontera de Cristo Border Ministries, Daniel Cifuentes, a former coffee farmer working in the maquilas in Agua Prieta, Tommy Bassett, (a former maquila manager) and Rev. Adams, Just Coffee sprouted an economic plan with coffee growers in Chiapas.
According to Rev. Adams, “Just Coffee is focusing on the direct causes of economic migration into the US. We are sure that providing economic incentives to remain on cherished homelands with friends and loved ones will prove much more humane and effective than all the fences, cameras and agents.””Why move if there are opportunities and the potential for financial success and family satisfaction at home?”
The Just Coffee cooperative and Frontera de Cristo developed a model in which the value of roasting, packing, and sales is added to the coffee produced by the coffee community of Salvador-Urbina, Chiapas, Mexico.
“This value rises to about 400% of the value of the green product paid by fair trade intermediaries such as Equal Exchange, and ten times that paid to the vast majority of small producers in the conventional market. All the profits remain within Mexico to contribute to the growth of the cooperative and to economic development.”
Surprisingly, the organization has fueled the economy of the small coffee village, and Rev. Adams admits, “has had a positive effect on the quality of life as well as the sense of dignity and justice prevalent in the families involved.” There is now potable water, cell phone coverage, education for the children and basic necessities that were, otherwise, non existent.
In contrast to the success of Just Coffee, a startling report published by the USDA on the success of NAFTA, David Williams, states, “Economic transition away from agriculture is inevitable for many small-scale agricultural producers. Future policies should focus on generating off-farm employment for those who need it, improving trade opportunities for the 15 percent of Mexico’s producers who are globally competitive and improving the productivity of the 35 percent who have the potential to compete.”
While the migration from Latin America continues, despite the billions of dollars to secure the border, small villages that were self sustaining through centuries of hard labor from toiling the soil, now find themselves without opportunities to compete in the global empire. Villagers are desperate to feed their children, and with the growing numbers of impoverished people in Mexico and further south, Just Coffee offers a Just Solution to the inequities among the haves and have nots.
Just Coffee has expanded its operations with Just Trade, creating other coffee cooperatives in Veracruz, Nayarit, and Haiti, replicating the successful micro-credit model.
To order delicious, organic and shade grown coffee contact them at http://www.justcoffee.org/
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