The discussions on the future of the International Coffee Agreement present an historic opportunity to address the ongoing crisis facing smallholder coffee farmers and farmworkers by contributing to sustainable coffee supply chains. At the 2nd World Coffee Conference in September 2005 several organizations presented the International Coffee Organisation and its delegates with the Carta de Salvador—the Salvador Declaration, which stressed the ongoing effects of the coffee crisis facing small-scale family farmers and farmworkers. This paper calls on International Coffee Organization members to support small-scale farmers and farmworker organizations by ensuring space for their direct participation in international debate, creating mechanisms that enhance the availability of market information to small-scale farmers, and maximizing opportunities to develop cohesive international strategies to provide technical support, access to credit, and direct access to markets.

But I'm luckier than most. Just as the shortest, coldest days of winter hit Boston, the coffee cherries in Central America and Ethiopia begin reaching their peak red color. That's when I get to do my favorite work—visiting with Oxfam's coffee partners in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Ethiopia. Each coffee harvest, I reconnect with the farmers who Oxfam America campaigns for back home.

Whenever I visit with coffee farmers and explain that I've come to learn more about their lives I'm always greeted warmly. These visits get me motivated, although, if truth be told, the visits aren't always uplifting.

This harvest I visited a farmers' cooperative in southern Ethiopia. Though I was welcomed by a group of 15 farmers and their families, the conversation was grim. The coop had fallen on hard times. Though the world price of coffee was up, the families I met were struggling to make it on $300 a year. In two hours there wasn't a single smile on anyone's face and I drove away struggling to imagine how these people were going to make it.

Just a few weeks ago I returned from Guatemala. The volcanic mountains surrounding Lake Atitlan create some of the best coffee-growing conditions in the world. Yet last October the farmers I met with saw Hurricane Stan wash enough mud and boulders down from these mountains to cover houses and wipe out coffee farms. I met people who lost it all and found myself struck by the fact that these farmers—people who were already struggling to get by—were struggling even harder this year because they were on the wrong side of geographic circumstance.

But both in Ethiopia and Guatemala I was amazed to find—as I always do—something inspiring. This harvest, my favorite experience was a walk with Don Antonio Cavajay Ixtamer, president of the cooperative La Voz que Clama en el Desierto (the voice that cries out in the desert). Antonio took my colleagues and me on a walk through his coffee farm where Antonio estimates 80 percent of his land was damaged. We saw coffee trees buried in infertile silt and stumps marking the places where healthy coffee trees once stood.

At the far end of Antonio's farm we emerged from the trees left standing into an area that looked like a dry river bed covered with boulders, some larger than Antonio. He explained that this area had been covered with coffee trees but was inundated with rocks and mud that slid down the mountain during Stan.

It was hard to fathom the force that was required to do such damage to the farm and I asked Antonio if he would ever be able to recover the land. Without missing a beat, Antonio replied "Si se puede. Si se puede." (Yes we can. Yes we can.), and proceeded to explain how he and his sons would remove the rocks, fill trenches, and build stone barriers to divert water before the rainy season begins in May.

Antonio hopes to have the recoverable portions of his land replanted within three years. I don't know whether he'll be successful, but if he falls short, it won't be for lack of motivation and hard work.

Some won't be successful—I know that. But so many of the coffee farmers I meet share the same spirit as Antonio that I've returned to Boston inspired and ready to do what I can to support them. As a result of my trip, Oxfam will provide farmers with $100,000 they can use to help rebuild after Stan.

Despite all the challenges I see, there are farmers who don't give up. As long as they're willing to fight, then I'm willing to fight, too. Some wins are big, some incremental, and sometimes we don't win at all. But as long as Antonio and other coffee farmers are saying "Si se puede" then "Si se puede" it is for me, as well. Yes we can. We have to.

Dhara Botara, a mother of eight in the remote community of Gura in Ethiopia’s Oromiya region, used to spend more than three hours each day walking to fetch water, sometimes accompanied by some of her children. The surface water she collected was often dirty and sometimes contaminated with parasites, which sickened her children.

Today, Dhara gets clean water twice a day from a new pump located just minutes from her home. In the morning and again in the afternoon, she visits the pump to haul back one or two five-gallon water containers. The water, from an aquifer 200 feet deep, comes out pure and cool.

In addition, she and her family now have access to a private bathing shed and a concrete washstand where they can wash their clothes and dishes.

The water project is one of three developed in the past year by the Oromo Self-Reliance Association with support from Oxfam America. Oxfam’s $42,000 contribution also underwrote the cost of the wells, pumps, bathing sheds, and laundry stations in two other communities besides Gura—Qamaxo and Alanqa—some 50 miles southwest of Addis Ababa. Altogether, some 1,800 people are benefiting from the water projects, which were inaugurated recently in separate ceremonies in the three communities.

"Clean water is just part of the equation," says Abera Tola, Oxfam America's regional director for the Horn of Africa. "Women now have more time to spend with their families, children can spend more time in school—the whole community benefits from these projects."

So popular are the water projects that neighboring communities have sent delegations to local authorities asking for the installation of similar facilities for their use.

Dhara and other beneficiaries in Gura pay 1 birr (about 12 cents) a month toward the upkeep of the washstand and pump, which is surrounded by a fence and open for six hours a day. But it’s clear from the smile on her face that the change it has brought to women in the community has been priceless.

From flooding in Haiti to drought in Ethiopia, water has long been central to Oxfam's work. Our emergency water systems are a hallmark of our agency. And our efforts to help communities access water for farming and fishing enable people to realize security.

But in recent decades, some extraordinary water pressures have emerged, as water resources are being swallowed up by dams, mining, and other commercial projects. The result is that, for the villages along the rivers, in the watersheds, and on the floodplains of East Asia being swamped or dried up by dams…for the indigenous people and farmers of South America whose rivers, lakes, and wells have been destroyed by mining…water is quickly becoming a major issue—and a major issue for Oxfam.

Drought-related risks are a primary concern throughout Ethiopia where 85% of the population is dependent on smallholder, rain-fed agriculture. Adi Ha is a drought-prone community that has expressed strong interest in incorporating insurance into its risk management strategy.

The pilot will adopt a holistic approach to risk management, examining the suitability of weather insurance and risk reduction measures such as seasonal forecasting and improved agricultural practices. All efforts will be undertaken in close collaboration with the local farming community with the overall objective of alleviating poverty.

The efforts will be funded by Swiss Re and Oxfam America, with primary technical support being provided by the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University. Ivo Menzinger, Head of Sustainability & Emerging Risk Management, commented, "Swiss Re is delighted to support Oxfam in implementing this fundamental and important work in the Tigray Province. In particular, we can combine our commitment to corporate citizenship with providing consulting support to the project on risk transfer issues."

Swiss Re has pioneered weather risk transfer instruments in developing countries, starting in India in 2004 with a program reaching over 350,000 smallholder farmers. In 2007, Swiss Re introduced the Climate Adaptation Development Programme (CADP). The goal of the CADP partnership is to develop and implement weather risk transfer solutions in non-OECD countries.

Oxfam America President Raymond C. Offenheiser said: "This pilot offers a chance for smallholder farmers to become more resilient to changing weather patterns. It's an opportunity to increase the impact of Oxfam's risk reduction programs and explore exciting innovations in weather-based microinsurance..."

Over the last 35+ years, Oxfam America has worked to bolster the capacity of poor communities around the world to reduce vulnerability. Nevertheless, climate change is dramatically increasing the level of risk faced by the poor across the planet. For this reason, Oxfam America is interested in developing new mechanisms to address risk for poor farmers.