Just Coffee Cooperative

In May I traveled to Bolivia with Brad Brandhorst of Larry's Beans in Raleigh North Carolina and Florent Gout and ShiYi Fu from Cooperative Coffees.  We visited three grower cooperatives that Cooperative Coffees purchases coffee from, AIPEP, PASYBOL and APROCAFE.  The trip began in La Paz, the highest capitol city in the world where we were ably and awesomely hosted by FECAFEB (Federacion de Cafecultores Exportadores de Bolivia).  We were assisted in our travels also by Lisa and Arianne.

    The first half of our delegation's trip to Tanzania was spent with the Mt. Meru Coffee Project (MMCP).  MMCP is a joint venture between a Lutheran dioces in Mt. Meru, Tanzania and a Lutheran dioces in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The project's chief aim is to improve the standard of living of coffee farmers on Mt. Meru while providing excellent coffee to American consumers.  MMCP is very different from the cooperatives we've visited, so let me try to explain.
    The Mt. Meru Coffee Project was incorporated in 2007 as a non profit in the United States and has one employee: Emil (wearing the white shirt), who represented Mt. Meru and showed us around their operations.  The purpose of MMCP is to help guide the new Mt. Meru Specialty Coffee Growers Association (henceforth described as 'the Association') to a place of economic stability while importing and marketing the Association's coffee in the U.S.  It is the hope of the Mount Meru Coffee Project that this transfer will happen in 2012, although MMCP is not growing as fast as hoped.  The structure of the Association is similar to that of the Gumutindo and Oromia cooperatives we visited: the Association is owned by 32 small farmer groups that are in turn owned directly by 2400 farmers.  According to the Association's bylaws, "we of Meru will fully own and manage quality coffee production all the way to export."  The Association is not a cooperative, however, and thus does not have the same governmental oversight and guiding principles.

I've rewritten this article three times.  Quite simply, I don't know what to say.  But transparency means the truth – what we saw, what we heard.  So here it is.

Oliver runs one of the most successful farms in the Gumutindo Cooperative. This farm is on Mount Elgon at the eastern edge of Uganda where Gumutindo's ten primary cooperatives are located. What makes Oliver's farm unique is its dedication to intelligent money handling. The farm has grown from 300 coffee trees to 3000 over the past two years and the higher price paid for Fair Trade has made this possible. Diversity is also central on this farm – while coffee is the primary cash crop, Oliver's family derives almost all of its food consumption from the farm. Whenever they need to buy something they cut some produce from the fields and sell it in the market for the needed money. Meet Oliver. Aside from running this tremendously successful farm she is also on the board of the primary cooperative and a leader in the local womens' movement, asserting her and other womens' participation on the board level of both her primary cooperative and Gumutindo. She is also using her farm's Fair Trade income to put her three children through school and save some money. Her and her family's tremendous success shows the power of womens empowerment that happens through Gumutindo. "None of the other coffee cooperatives or buyers make it possible," she says. "At other households the woman does everything from the planting and picking to the processing and even carrying it to market, but it is the man who takes and spends the money. But this is changing."