Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union
Fair Trade is not just a good opportunity for a savvy coffee grower– it's a life saver.
What kind of an organization can help impoverished coffee farmers in Ethiopia overcome an international price crisis brought on by a worldwide supply glut? This is precisely what Oxfam's Ethiopian partner Oromia Coffee Cooperative Union is trying to do for thousands of farming families, and they see the solution in the Fair Trade market.
|
| Tadesse Meskela, General Manageer of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. The OCFCU markets Fair Trade coffee, and returns 70% of the gross back to farmers. By: Peggy Connolly ©Oxfam America |
The recent coffee price crisis, which has seen prices at a 35-year low around the world, is creating severe hardships for coffee farmers in the Kaffa and Oromia areas of Ethiopia and other communities around the world. These low prices mean farmers can’t cover their basic costs of producing coffee, so they are operating at a loss. Many farmers are suffering from drastically reduced incomes, so they are unable to buy teff, a staple starch central to diets in this area. They can’t pay for medical care, and are cutting back on school expenses. But at a time when many coffee farmers around the world are abandoning their farms, moving to cities and other countries, or switching to other crops, Ethiopian farmers interviewed by Oxfam in 2002 are dedicated to sticking with coffee. One 60-year old farmer said, "No, I won't diversify. Growing coffee is our tradition–this is the birthplace of coffee."
Coffee, probably the most popular beverage in the world, was first grown in Ethiopia. The coffee growing area in the mountains to the west of the Great Rift Valley is so ideally suited to growing arabica coffee the farmers need no fertilizer or insecticides. This is where the some of the best coffee in the world is grown, and the farmers are proud of it.
The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU) is helping small-scale coffee farmers take advantage of the Fair Trade coffee market, an important and viable alternative strategy that will help the farmers in Ethiopia as well as millions of others around the world. Fair Trade coffee companies commit to provide credit and a higher price to registered coffee cooperative associations. The higher price—$1.26 per pound ($1.41 for certified organic coffee), can be three times the normal price paid by local coffee dealers and exporters. Just as the coffee companies are committed to providing credit, Fair Trade cooperatives are committed to sharing revenues, to ensure the price premium really helps people and their communities. In a country where the average per capita income is around $100 per year, Fair Trade can make a real difference.
Fair Trade is not just a good opportunity for a savvy coffee grower–it's a life saver. The Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (OCFCU) was established in 1999 in order to help the 100,000 farmer families in working in Oromia cooperatives to get through this difficult price crisis. In only its third year, the OCFCU is already starting to return 70% of its gross profits back to the Fair Trade cooperatives, in order to help coop members.
Oxfam is helping the OCFCU with funding to help them upgrade their offices with computers, to buy equipment and trucks to process and transport the coffee, and to cover marketing expenses that will help OCFCU sell more coffee. By increasing the revenues going back to Oromia’s coffee farmers, Tadesee Meskela, the general manager, and the OCFCU are helping Ethiopian farmers carry on their proud tradition of coffee cultivation in the face of the most serious economic threats they have seen in generations.
Coffee farmers would prefer to work their own way out of the current crisis, which is deepening each day. According to Tadesse, "there are communities that are growing coffee that have never bought clothes for the past three years. They have cancelled their marriage plans for their children because of the falling coffee prices. There is no money for the celebration that is important to the culture. Malnutrition is seen in coffee areas, because farmers... are better at [growing] their crop than saving money, so we have a plan to establish societies to help them save, then to use the money for when they are short of cash to buy food [during the growing season] when there is no harvest."
Another essential way to fight poverty everywhere in the world is to promote education for children. But when families face hard times, school expenses are hard to meet. Tadesse pointed out this is also true in Oromia. "Now the farmers cannot afford to buy [school] uniforms for children, cannot afford to pay even a small amount of contribution to the schools, they cannot afford to pay for food for when they stay in school, because it is 10 to 20 kilometers from their house." Part of the reason Tadesse is working so hard to promote sales of OCFCU's coffee is that the increase in revenues going back to the communities can be used to build schools. This is addressing one of the direct barriers to education for impoverished communities in a country where only about a quarter of the school-aged children attend school. "I hope that most of the cooperatives will establish a school, a primary school for the children in their localities. Some other cooperatives are financing the school in their locality to buy chairs and other things."
If you are interested in buying coffee from Oromia, contact the following companies in the United States:
Cooperative Coffees: 229/924-3035
Dean's Beans: 978/544-2002
Peace Coffee: 888/324-7872