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."

In her and an increasing number of other farmers' families this dynamic is changing. Men and women are sharing more roles – her husband prepared this meal for us – and their families are better off because of it. Half of Gumutindo's Board of Directors are women – something that was hard for farmers to accept for the first year or two – and many of its employees are also women.

Her success also shows how effective the higher Fair Trade price can be at improving standards of living. Aside from sending her children to good schools, she has purchased more land and is planning on an addition to her house.

She and others explained that at other farms old habits die hard – sharing of gendered labor is very slow to change and a large majority of households still have a gendered labor system. Through her and others' leadership Gumutindo has seen the value of womens' increasing role on the farm and in the cooperative. Gumutindo employs agricultural extension workers to travel around to the thousands member owner farmers of Gumutindo and educate them on organic agriculture practices, meeting Fair Trade standards, and producing quality coffee – but they also educate farmers on the benefit of men and women sharing both household, field, and money management labor. When women manage money on the farm, the family sees the entirity of it.  Gumutindo's Communications and Information officer Immanuel explained to us that with farmers on Mount Elgon, in order to get 10 shillings to a family you need to pay a man 110 shillings - but you only need to pay a woman 10 shillings.    Women manage money better, we were told, and put more in savings and to their family's needs.  This is happening more and more with Gumutindo's farming families, although it is still a minority.

The motor bike in this picture belongs to Gumutindo and is used by its extension workers to travel between farms since all of the roads are dirt roads.

Is that badass or what?

Anyway, one of the other wonders of Oliver's farm is the uncommon sense she uses in selecting crop diversity. She plants shade trees that can also be used for fire wood and building materials, cover crops for food, grasses for her cattle (that also provide milk), and more. Intercropping is the name of the game for Oliver with careful selection of trees that are valuable for her family and compliment each other very effectively.  She took us on a tour of her farm and showed us how she has been expanding and what makes her different from most farmers in the area.  Her farm is very unique for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that she is the head of the household.  Ugandan society is quite patriarchal, although less so than the regions of Ethiopia we've visited.  Succeeding the way she has in such an environment speaks even more of her abilities.

This is her primary cooperative. They have 1000 member farmers in the region and they are one of the ten primary cooperatives that make Gumutindo. They recently built a warehouse and offices with their Fair Trade premium and they are working on electrification projects right now. This was posted on the wall of the warehouse office: Like Just Coffee says: Demand transparency.  Farmers in this co-op know where every penny that Gumutindo receives is going.

But remember: this is not a typical farm in Uganda - for many reasons it is unique.  But for all of those same reasons it can show us the direction in which Gumutindo is moving.