Just Coffee

On the road to a celebration of their work against domestic violence, 22 women from La FEM, including Jitzy Ruiz and her mother, were recently injured in a bus accident. Several of the women were hospitalized and one pregnant woman suffered injuries to her 5 month-old fetus. Most of the women have been released from the hospital.

FEM is seeking support them help them cover their medical costs. They also are looking for funds to cover the costs of having to pay people from the community to pick the coffee for some of the women who now will not be able to harvest it themselves.

Here is a video diary of my recent trip to Venezuela.

The song in the clip is by a fellow named Luis Llaneton Sandoval. It is called "Las Cachos Suben y Bajan".

I'll post more stories and photos about VZ soon.

Despite the full court pressure of negative press and an incredibly lame op-ed in the Washington Post by Donald Rumsfeld, the referendum on changes to VZ's constitution went off without spawning the apocalypse. And surprisingly, the changes were rejected by a narrow margin. So much for the downfall of democracy in Venezuela.

No matter what you thought about the proposed changes to the constitution, you have to admit that the election was impressive. The US press has made constant reference to the "violent" campaign, but in truth it was largely peaceful. And please note that, unlike our current presidential campaign, no one walked into any of the organizing organizations' offices taking hostages with a pipe bomb.

So if you are a Venezuelan, whether a Chavista or a member of the opposition, I send a salute to you today. You all have a functioning democracy and that is something we could use here in the US.

Hello from sunny VZ. As you can see from this photo, I am having a great time. I have been here for a week-- mostly in the state of Lara in and around the city of Sanare. Lara is west of Caracas and is a great foil to the complete insanity of Caracas.

Actually, that is probably not fair to Caracas. I stayed with two very lovely people from the Communal Councils in the heart of Caracas and I met some incredible activists who are working overtime to organize in their community. In a place where, had I been alone, I would have felt pretty vulnerable and ubergringo-like, I was treated with incredible respect and kindness.

We at JC are pleased to announce that we are now in possession of coffee from Nicaragua’s Fundacion Entre Mujeres (FEM) here in Madison. La FEM is an organization that features women’s coffee growing cooperatives in the region of Esteli’, Nicaragua. Our relationship with La FEM is one that we are incredibly excited about, and we look forward to working with them closely for the foreseeable future.

Just Coffee offers travel delegations to visit it's coffee producers around the world!

Now is your last chance to sign up for trips to Chiapas Mexico, May 10-16, and Guatemala, May 18-24. We also have a unique delegation to East Timor planned for July 15-21.

Visit the upcoming delegations page of our website for more information. Contact delegation coordinator Colleen Coy at colleen@justcoffee.net to sign up today!

Just when you think that certification politics have reached a low ebb, they get a little lower.

The USDA recently announced that it is changing the requirements of grower cooperatives for their organic certification. In the past, because co-ops are often geographically dispersed and have hundreds of farmers with small plots of land, the USDA has allowed its affiliate inspectors to only physically inspect 20% of farmers' fields annually. They are now changing this requirement to 100% every year, if we at the JC co-op are interpreting their ruling correctly.

Growers have been loud and clear about the costs of organic certification. Their message is that even with only 20% of farmers being inspected, it is debatable whether many can recover their costs for added labor and certification expenses. Mulitply those costs by another 80% and you have effectively made certification unaffordable for the vast number of small growers.

FLO announced Tuesday that it is raising the "social premium" $.05 for conventional fair trade coffee, making the new minimum plus social premum $1.31 where previously it was $1.26. They also will raise the "organic differential" $.10 to make the FT/organic minimum plus differential $1.51, up from $1.41. This is a positive step that goes into effect June 1st.

However, the base mimimum price is still $1.21 for fair trade coffee. The idea with the "premium" is that it should be "extra" cash leftover after producers are paid for the value of their coffee and labor to be invested in community infrastructure. The "organic differential" is a sum paid to help cover rising costs of organic production and certification. In order for these "premiums" to work, we have to assume that growers are making money beyond the cash they need for basic survival. We have heard from farmers that this is not always the case.

The FLO standards committee will be studying this into the summer and will make a new recommedation in September. Concerned people please continue to hammer on the fact that costs all around have gone up in the past 12 years and that the mimimum base price, along with the premiums, needs to be raised. Also consider suggesting that this review be repeated often with transparency and democratic participation from diverse stakeholders. We need a producer-led democratic process in the FLO and TFUSA systems. Click here to contact FLO.

We are moving forward.

Location(s)

Join Just Coffee as we travel to East Timor!

July 15-21, 2007

More details can be found at: www.justcoffee.net/EastTimor2007