Objective
Coffee is among the most popular beverages worldwide with an estimated 400 billion cups consumed each year. There are roughly 100 million coffee drinkers in the US alone. In 2001, coffee prices plummeted, creating a humanitarian crisis for 25 million coffeegrowing families in over 50 developing countries. Farmers were earning comparably less than their ancestors had 100 years earlier. With coffee selling for less than it cost to produce it, many families could not afford health care or even food. In Central America alone, half a million jobs were lost as a result of the crisis.
Solution
Savy created a sustainable empowerment program for small producers in Central American coffee cooperatives that provided them the relevant knowledge and information for their professional, economical and personal development. Worldwide, these small producers are using trade to achieve economic, social and environmental progress. Fairtrade premiums generated from the program have helped build schools, supplied remote villages with water, repaired impassable roads, preserved cultural traditions, provided schools with computers and funded medical needs. Under the program’s framework, purchasing these cooperatives’ products were a direct contribution to environmental stewardship, uplifting struggling communities and empowering small growers. “What we are doing now in the cooperative, and selling to the Fair Trade market, guarantees that we have enough food for the first time in years, and also guarantees much more freedom.”