August Coffee News

-35-W Bridge collapse
-Global Connections
-Fair Trade Part 2: accountability, transparency and worker conditions
-Coop America Business Network

35-W Bridge Collapse
Everywhere you turn these days, people are thinking and talking about the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. It has certainly been in our thoughts as well, although, thankfully, none of our family or friends were directly involved. But our hearts go out to the families and friends of the victims and in particular to one of our customers whose friend is among those confirmed as dead.

From a practical perspective, we are grateful that the 35W bridge was not part of our regular coffee delivery route. However, there will be a slight change this month as we experiment with doing some of our August home deliveries on Friday, August 10th and the rest on Saturday the 11th. We now have over 60 deliveries to do (yay!) and we're hoping that spreading them out over two days will make things a bit calmer. We're also hoping to get our more than 20 mailed orders out a bit earlier too, dropping them off with FedEx or the Post Office by Saturday the 11th.

Global Connections
The Minneapolis bridge tragedy has also proved to be a lesson of how connected we are and how quickly news spreads. Within a few hours of the collapse, we received phone calls from South Dakota, Virginia, Florida, Tennesee and even Honduras making sure we were all OK. It is that global connectedness (helped along by tools such as email, cell phones, and the Web) that makes our little fair-trade effort possible. Globalization is not only a force of multi-national corporations helping the rich get richer. It is also an opportunity for ordinary people to bring about change. Daniel Jaffee, in Brewing Justice, quotes the president of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as saying we need to make international trade "a tool not only for creating wealth, but also for its distribution."

More on Fair Trade

Last month, we promised to write more about how Velasquez Family Coffee addresses the fair trade concepts of accountability, transparency and worker conditions. A year ago, we were pleased to be accepted into the Coop America Business Network and included in the National Green Pages. (Coop America is one of our favorite groups and a great resource on green and fair trade living.)

As part of the screening process, Coop America asked us several tough questions. Here are our honest answers (we believe honesty is a key part of accountability and transparency!)

Q. Wages are only a part of fair trade. Beyond wages, does Velasquez Family Coffee adhere to the other components of fair trade as enumerated by the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO)?

A. Our business also reflects the following additional fair trade values:

Long Term and Stable Relationships -- By purchasing from family members, we naturally have a permanent relationship and commitment -- both with the growers and the community where they farm -- that goes beyond business. But we also make sure to give written documentation to family members each year of the coffee we will be purchasing and the price we will pay.

Pricing and Premium -- We pay our family members between $2.00 and $3.00 per pound of green coffee -- far above the Fair trade minimum price even for organic coffee. In 2006, we paid $2.50.

Q. You mention that family members are paid well. Is there a code of conduct or specific labor criteria for any farm workers hired by your family members? What is the policy for sharing profits with these workers?

A. Family members are committed to good conditions for their workers, but we, unfortunately, do not have a "code of conduct" or any specific "labor criteria" for farm workers. Nor do we have a policy for sharing profits. We would welcome examples of policies that other groups are using.

In practice, the family members we purchase coffee from, have enjoyed long term relationships with many of their coffee workers. They pay them a bit above the going rate in their community, provide them with food and housing and transportation. For small coffee farmers like our family members, finding enough people to pick coffee during the harvest season has become a challenge especially in the last few years. More and more people are finding work in maquiladores factories or leaving for the U.S. As a result, small coffee farmers have had to work really hard to offer attractive working conditions for their employees, simply to have enough labor.

Yet, we admit, this is an area of our business that could use improvement. As we are able to purchase more of our family's coffee (we currently only purchase about half), we hope that they will be able to have the financial stability themselves to be able to support their workers with higher wages. As mentioned above, we would also recommend examples of other standards for farm workers that our family members could implement.

Another part of accountability and transparency has to do with being open about the flow of money. Look for a break down on the costs that go into a typical bag of coffee next month.