For Wales to become a fair trade nation, it set up criteria (and then met them) with the help of the Fairtrade Foundation and charities such as Oxfam and Christian Aid. This included doing things like having Fairtrade campaign groups in 55 per cent of towns, using and promoting Fairtrade products like coffee, tea and biscuits in the meetings and offices of the Welsh Assembly and promoting Fairtrade awareness in faith groups and schools around Wales.

To expand this achievement to a bigger country would be a challenge, but not impossible, according to Andy Wilson, fair trade development officer from the Wales Fair Trade Forum. “In Wales we had and still have more than 1,000 grass-roots activists pressuring shops and councils to stock Fairtrade products,” he says. “It’s also about the government getting involved and the Welsh Assembly has been very supportive, so whichever country wanted to follow our lead would need a lot of support.”

Fair trade success could be translated to a larger scale but perhaps the easiest way for a nation to achieve Fairtrade status is through its citizens changing their buying behaviour. “Once people see the Fairtrade Mark as a sign of quality rather than a brand itself, then buying products that are approved will become second nature,” explains Andy. “For example, the chocolate producers in Ghana have the capacity to make every chocolate bar Fairtrade certified if the demand is out there — consumers have the power to make that happen.”

Scotland is already on its way to becoming a fair trade nation and the Wales Fair Trade Forum — set up specifically to help Wales become a fair trade nation — has had calls from as far away as the Middle East expressing interest in following its lead. You never know, the whole world might some day copy Wales’ example.

The retail giant said that it would source $400,000 in locally-produced food this year, including more local fruits and vegetables for its stores, but it was unclear how much of an increase in value this represented over last year. It already sources a fifth of its food locally - by which it means at a state level in the US - during the summer months, and partnerships with local farmers have grown by 50 per cent in the past two years.

The average distance traveled between producer and consumer is 1,500 miles, said the company, but it would not comment on how much it has or will reduce this distance.

However, critics said that while the initiative was to be welcomed there was a lack of clarity over the level environmental savings that are delivered by local sourcing initiatives.

“None of the supermarkets properly share what that means in terms of actual food miles,” said Kathy Dalmeny, policy director of Sustain, a UK advocacy group for better food and farming. “You continue to have cases of foods that are sold as local but can travel quite a long way before they get processed or labeled. The full meaning can be subject to more investigation.”

Erik Esse, director of the non-profit Local Fair Trade Network which advocates food producers’ rights in the upper midwest US, was cautiously hopeful about the announcement. “If it’s legitimate, than nothing could be better,” he said. “But when they got big into organics, they created pressure for lower prices, and that’s the opposite of what we want. We don’t want local farmers in the situation where they have even lower prices for their product because Wal-Mart is driving a hard bargain and buying from bigger suppliers.”

Wal-Mart failed to respond to questions about how its ongoing local produce initiative is changing logistics or supplier management strategies, how much it is saving overall from local food initiatives, or how the press release represented a change to its previous food procurement strategy.

Multicultural performing artists from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe will showcase on three different stages in Media, to create a musical celebration of diversity. Other festivities will portray an in-depth experience of global cultures with streetscape artists performing in what’s
being called “Fair Fair”, Fair Trade vendors offering tasty food and
handcrafted items for purchase, and many hands-on, fun and educational
activities for children and parents. Also, admission to the event is free.

“Fair Trade Live will be a festive, multicultural celebration. We are designing this event to bring greater visibility to Media’s commitment to Fair Trade, to give people an opportunity to learn more about how even small purchasing decisions can have a dramatic, economic impact on farmers and
workers around the world and hopefully to inspire others to learn more about how they can join this growing movement,” said Elizabeth Killough, chair of America’s First Fair Trade Committee.

Fair Trade is a practice that guarantees family farmers and workers will receive fair wages for their harvest: a comprehensive social-economic tool strong enough to raise the standard of living for millions of people. A movement that began in Europe and has spread throughout the world is now
gaining greater recognition for what it offers: environmental sustainability, economic development, and social equality for small-scale farmers and workers around the world.

With Fair Trade gaining momentum, America’s First Fair Trade Town Committee — a small group of dedicated storeowners and businesspeople — decided to create an event that would raise public awareness for this important world-wide cause. Fair Trade committee members are working to
involve Media officials and store owners for this major event, which will attract an estimated 5,000 visitors from 12-8 p.m. For more information about Fair Trade Live Concert please visit http://www.visitmediapa.com/fairtrade.

Media, PA declared itself America’s First Fair Trade Town on July 8, 2006 by meeting the five requirements established by the British Fair Trade Federation, including having a certain number of Media retailers sell Fair Trade products, and ensuring that the Media Borough Council pass a resolution
in active support of Fair Trade.

Blackwell’s Organic Gelato and Sorbetto has partnered with TransFair USA to exhibit within their booth #5463 at the 2008 Fancy Food Show in NYC. TransFair USA is the nation’s only independent, third-party certifier of Fair Trade Certified products and Blackwell’s Organic is the only frozen dessert company that has at least one Fair Trade Certified ingredient in every flavor.

Blackwell’s Organic will be sampling four of their 11 delectable flavors at the show. Attendees will get to try their deep Dark Bittersweet Chocolate, Espresso, award-winning Raspberry Sorbetto and their refreshing Orange Sorbetto. 100% of the chocolate, cocoa, coffee and evaporated cane juice in these flavors are organic as well as Fair Trade Certified. This family owned company hand crafts each flavor in small batches. Family members actually puree all the fruit for the sorbettos and brew the coffee for the coffee gelato.

Consumers can find Blackwell’s’ Organic super premium frozen desserts at specialty and gourmet retailers in the NY metro area, NJ and PA for SRP of $9 per pint. Blackwell’s Organic products are also available at Whole Foods Market in NY, NJ and southern CT. The full line of Blackwell’s Organic Gelatos and Sorbettos can be purchased online at gelatobymail.com for shipping throughout the Continental USA.

“From day one we knew our gelatos and sorbettos would be made with Fair Trade Certified ingredients.
Fair Trade is something we are passionate about and it was the only way we would do business,” said Marcia Blackwell, Founder of Blackwell’s Organic. “We look forward to sampling our delicious desserts and sharing our views on the importance of Fair Trade Certified ingredients and products.”

Blackwell’s Organic was named by the readers of Edible Jersey Magazine as their 2008 Local Hero-Food Artisan and that their Raspberry Sorbetto is a SOFI silver finalist in the USDA Organic Category at the 2008 Fancy Food Show in NY.

In the June issue of New Jersey Life Magazine, the editors said “New Jersey-based Blackwell’s Organic creates soy gelato and fruit sorbetto made from the finest organic ingredients that you will not be able to resist. Rather than rely on sugary toppings and wacky combos, quality and depth of flavor reign in Blackwell’s 100% vegan and cholesterol-free treats.”

Oikocredit is thus a unique co-operative financial institution, looking back at 30 years of experience in offering loans or investment capital to microfinance institutions, cooperatives, and small and medium sized enterprises in the developing world. What makes Oikocredit unique is the fact that people get access to credit who normally are excluded from financial services because they cannot offer the collaterals regular banks ask for or the interest rates are too high. It is the low dividend that enables Oikocredit to provide credit at reasonable interest rates and to extend credit to projects with higher risk profiles. Even though Oikocredit was created as a profitable organization, it chooses not to maximize its profits for the benefit of the shareholders, but for project partners such as microfinance institutions and cooperatives of farmers. With the initiative ‘Fair finance – Fair trade’ Oikocredit goes beyond microfinance and supports fair trade organizations and producers engaged in fair trade. Oikocredit supports project partners on the grass-root-level, including non-governmental organizations, small and medium sized enterprises, and cooperatives, but it is also microfinance institutions that turn to Oikocredit to find an alternative private investor in order to meet the needs of their thousands of individual clients.

Oikocredit’s approach reaches also marginalized groups like the rural women supported by organizations such as Confianza, a microfinance organisation established in 1997 in Peru, with the mission of primarily focusing on women of the highlands with little access to financial services. Many of these women are heads of households whose families’ livelihood depends on their small agribusiness. The organization started its operations with a portfolio of 800 micro-loans for a total of 389,000 US dollars. After six years their portfolio had increased to around 11,500 clients in seven agencies, totalling some 8,700,000 US dollars and a repayment rate of 96%. The organization now has set up urban micro-lending programmes open to both female and male borrowers, while rural women continue to be the main focus of Confianza.

The key figures of 2007 show the success of Oikocredit’s approach: EUR 135 million disbursed to new projects and a total outstanding capital of EUR 277 million. In 2007 Oikocredit’s net inflow experienced an increase of 22% and a total member capital of EUR 319 million, while the demand for micro-credits is still outpacing the supply. Oikocredit therefore needs more funds, not only in order to meet the increased demand, but also for the development of tools for measuring and monitoring of the sector’s social performance and the social vision and impact of its partners.

For more information see: www.oikocredit.org

This report on The European Market for Ethical Fruit & Vegetables is the first-ever study that examines the organic and fair trade sectors of the fresh produce industry. This report gives a comprehensive analysis and forecasts for the leading fresh fruit & vegetable product categories in this emerging market. Expert analysis and strategic recommendations are provided to existing producers, new entrants and investors.

Key Questions Answered:

Our expert analysis provides answers to the following questions:

– What is the size of the European organic and fair trade fruit & vegetables market?

– What are the growth forecasts?

– What is the market size by product categories?

– What countries have the largest organic and fair trade markets?

– Which are to show the highest growth?

– What countries are the leading producers of organic and fair trade products?

– What countries are the major exporters?

– Who are the leading organic & fair trade fresh produce traders/suppliers in the region?

– What companies are the leading importers and distributors of organic & fair trade products?

– Who are the leading organic and fair trade product retailers in each country?

– What mergers & acquisitions have occurred in the ethical fresh produce industry in recent years?

– What companies have been involved?

– What is the future growth outlook in terms of organic & fair trade production and sales?

– What are the business opportunities in the European organic & fair trade fruit & vegetables industry?

– What recommendations can be given to new entrants, existing producers and investors?

Product Segments: - Organic Vegetables - potatoes, carrots, onions, tomatoes, etc. - Organic Top Fruit - apples, pears - Organic Citrus Fruit - oranges, lemons, grapefruit, etc. - Organic Tropical & Exotic Fruit - Organic Stone Fruit - Other Organic Fruit - bananas, melons, etc. - Fairtrade Fruit - apples, oranges, mangoes, etc. - Fairtrade Bananas - Fairtrade Vegetables

Research Highlights:

– European sales of organic and fair trade fresh produce exceeded the EUR 5 billion (US $7.5 billion) mark for the first time in 2007. High market growth rates are because of the rise in ethical consumerism.

– Fair trade fruit & vegetables are reporting the fastest growth, with sales almost doubling last year. High growth is occurring as retailers make pledges to market only fair trade products. Most developments have been in the UK where two leading supermarkets have converted certain fruit lines entirely to fair trade. About a quarter of all banana sales in the UK are now fair trade.

– Organic products remain more popular, with organic vegetables now comprising over 5% of all vegetable sales in northern European countries. The market share has already exceeded 10% in some countries like Switzerland and Sweden. The organic fruit market is reporting higher growth however, as more tropical and exotic varieties come into the market.

– The organic fresh produce industry continues to be dogged by supply shortages, with European production not keeping pace with demand. Organic farmland is even declining in some countries because rising prices of agricultural products are discouraging farmers to convert to organic practices. Supermarkets are developing global supply chains to overcome supply issues, causing organic products to come into the region from almost every continent.

How You Will Benefit From This Report:

Since this report provides a comprehensive analysis on the European organic and fair trade fruit & vegetables market, it is an invaluable resource to executives/organisations looking for information. Expert analysis and strategic insights make the report equally useful to new entrants and companies already active in the ethical fresh produce industry.

The report gives a thorough market analysis, enabling the reader to make decisions on business opportunities and market plans. Market information includes market size by product segments and countries, historic & projected market growth rates, revenue forecasts, market drivers & restraints. Competitive information includes market shares of leading traders/suppliers, sales breakdown by channels, retailer analysis, profiles of leading companies (producers, importers and retailers). Other information includes supply chain, pricing trends, consumer trends and future outlook.

The report is useful for:

– CEOs and senior managers to assess the business potential of this emerging market and make investment decisions

– Marketing managers & executives to identify marketing opportunities, prospective customers and develop marketing/sales plans

– Business development managers to identify business opportunities, strategic partners and investment openings

– Financial institutions & investors to understand the revenue potential of this emerging industry and make investment decisions

– Advertising & marketing agencies to identify potential partners in this emerging industry and to get a better understanding of consumer behaviour to develop marketing/advertising programmes

– Information and research centre librarians to provide a one-stop information resource on this emerging industry, which is vital for marketing executives, market researchers, product & brand managers, and senior management.

Key Topics Covered: - Product Definition and Segmentation - Research Methodology - Industry Overview - The European Market for Organic Fruit & Vegetables Overview - The European Market for Organic Fruit Overview - The European Market for Organic Vegetables Overview - The European Market for Fairtrade Fruits & Vegetables Overview - List of Selected Companies

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/35fefc/the_european_marke

Source: Business Wire

There are a lot of sustainable food projects around the world right now and many are expanding our definition of the term. But every once in a while a project is truly visionary, like Pausa Café. Using coffee grown in the local cooperatives of the Huehuetenango highlands in Guatemala and roasted by specially selected and trained inmates at the Le Vallette prison near Turin, Italy, Pausa Café (”coffee break” in Italian) combines support for small, local producers of high-quality coffee who were often getting less than the cost of production for their crops, and an under-valued potential workforce to meet the need for a marketable niche product in Italy and elsewhere–artisan coffee.

Marco Ferrero is the creator of Pausa Café and a coordinator of the Huehuetenango Presidium. The former coordinator of non-government organizations in Guatemala for the Italian foreign affairs office, Ferrero could have been satisfied with creating just another fair trade coffee enterprise. Instead, he extended the boundaries to support another essential social goal, employment training and careers for a population typically underused and undervalued. The beauty of the Huehuetenango project is that the Presidium is providing training for the growers to improve their product, as well as expanded markets for the coffee. Ferrero wanted to support the project by importing the beans to Turin where they could be sold there, including at the new public market, Eataly. What he needed were people to roast the beans and eventually run the coffee shops. He found them in prison.

It’s a typical inmate profile: lack of skills, the stigma of being in prison, and an uncertain future. “The prisoners are poor because of stigma,” says Ferrero. “They are ‘losers.’ We show them they can make excellent coffee, so they are not ‘losers.’” We met Mr. Giacomo Baglio at the Café across the street from the prison. He was formerly one of six “guests,” as he puts it, of the prison who have been trained by the master roaster hired by Ferrero. He exudes the confidence of a man with skills and a taste of success. He beams with pride as he talks about Pausa Café. He was a mechanic before his crimes landed him in prison, a job he would have likely returned to had he not been “kidnapped,” he says, smiling, by Pausa Café. It’s clear his life changed as a result. But this is serious stuff. Baglio proved himself a perfect candidate for the job. But Ferrero says another inmate in the program declined–for now–to participate fully in the project, unwilling to commit to a clean life after leaving prison. “He said he ‘hadn’t decided yet,’” says Ferrero, who gives the man credit for the knowledge while making it clear the program is only for those who are ready. And why not? Ferrero’s record is perfect: six inmates have gone through the program and not one as re-offended. It’s remarkable the project commands such respect.

Ferrero is hoping to expand the project, which was part of the reason we (with our colleague Rossana Strunce), met. “Don’t just find a market for our coffee,” he tells us, “do another one.” And while he sees value in the prison model that has both enriched his project and contributed to his success, he is enthusiastic about the suggestion that people with disabilities might also fit the vision. Which says more than anything else about the importance of Pausa Café, a micro-enterprise that completes the picture of good, clean and fair.

Nancy Christy is the former owner of the Wilson Street Grill. She now runs the consulting firm Meaningful People, Places and Food. Neil Heinen is, among other things, her hungry husband. Comments? Questions? Please write to genuinearticles@madisonmagazine.com.

It was 1972, and Henry (now 68 and a security officer at the Gumutindo Coffee Cooperative in Mbale, eastern Uganda) was a senior police officer in the town. The despotic president Idi Amin Dada had recently come to power and was purging the army of soldiers loyal to his predecessor, Milton Obote.
‘The army was on a recruitment drive,’ Henry recalls, ‘and dozens of boys joined up.’ They were taken by bus to the Manafwa River, marched from the vehicle, shot dead and hurled into the rapids. It transpired that they were members of the northern Acholi tribe - feared by Amin, who was a Kakwa - and closely related to the Langi ethnic group to which Milton Obote belonged.

This and other stories drift through my mind as we begin our hike in the foothills of Mount Elgon - the vast volcano, straddling the border with Kenya - where Uganda’s finest coffee is grown. Once, when Henry was on duty at the police station, Amin’s thugs brought in a man with a black dog and held him in the cells. ‘They took him food,’ Henry recalls, ‘but he never ate it, poor boy. I think he sensed he was going to die.’ That afternoon, after the man was released, Henry heard gunshots in the forest. ‘People ran from that direction, saying: “A man has been killed and they have put a dead dog on top of him.” We knew this was the very man, and eventually his body was collected by Amin’s people in a jeep. He was killed because he had named his dog Amin Dada as a joke. Like Amin, if you told the dog something once, he would do it.’

Then there was Obe, an old friend of Henry’s, who was taken away by a ‘half-caste’ called Musa - one of Amin’s intelligence officers and, according to Henry, ‘a famous killer’. When Henry protested, he was apprehended himself and saved only by the intervention of a senior police colleague. Bundled into a vehicle with the registration ‘UVS’ (the sinister mark of Amin’s death squads), Obe was never seen again. The reason? ‘He was a prominent member of the UPC, the Uganda People’s Congress,’ says Henry, ‘which was Obote’s party.’

It is all chillingly reminiscent of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, but the cyclical nature of African history is not the only lesson to be learnt from Henry’s grim anecdotes. I am here to understand the story of coffee, and in Uganda that is largely a story of transformation and recovery from the dark days of the dictator. Like Mugabe, Amin plunged his country into economic meltdown - not, like Mugabe, by financial mismanagement, but by forcing the international community to impose a trade embargo as a protest against his murderous ways.

‘Nothing came in, nothing went out,’ says Willington Wamayeye, 47, general manager of the Gumutindo cooperative, ’so trade stagnated. Even if you had money, there was nothing to buy. My father had a small shop and, before Amin, sold paraffin, cooking oil, powdered milk, chewing gum… After Amin took over, those things vanished. Bread was there, then bread disappeared. In fact, people born between 1971 and 1974 never saw bread until the 1980s.’

Yet, ironically, these people - deprived of everything - had one resource that the whole world wanted: coffee, grown at high altitude on the fertile slopes of Mount Elgon, which was virtually indistinguishable from its famous Kenyan counterpart. Unable to export their beans legally, farmers traded them on the black market - and Kenya, a two-day trek from the Konokoyi valley where I am standing now, was their conduit to the coffee-drinking world.

Looking out over the verdant hillside, its surface etched by the occasional red-earth footpath, it is easy to imagine the scene. ‘We smuggled coffee from behind Mabugu ridge down to the Kenyan border,’ says Nimrod Wambette, our guide on the vertiginous hike to the old smuggler’s trail. ‘You see where the sun is striking the mountain opposite? That is Shigunga, where we would stop, check our coffee was safe, then rest before continuing the journey. We set off at dusk - eight or 10 of us, but joined by thousands of others, moving in single file and carrying coffee on our heads. The maximum load was 40 kilos. Often, we would walk for six hours at a time - but we would be sleepwalking.’

Like many other Ugandans I meet, Nimrod is a man of many parts: coffee farmer, trade unionist, local politician, chairman of both Gumutindo and the Konokoyi primary society (a cooperative of farmers that in turn supplies, and belongs to, a larger one), not to mention the headteacher of a school in Mbale. Now in his early fifties, he remembers the coffee-smuggling days well.

‘Between 1971 and 1975, the marketing systems collapsed,’ he says, ’so the smuggling peaked in 1977. We had stocks from 1975 and ‘76, but nowhere to sell our coffee - so people kept it in their houses, or in the primary society stores. All the stores were full. I started off carrying myself; then, when I had money, I hired people to carry for me. Everyone was doing it. I used my own pupils, from the class I was teaching - boys of 13 or 14.’ The smugglers exchanged their coffee for Kenyan currency, which was spent on kerosene, salt, sugar, soap - and the occasional luxury. ‘If you bought perfume for your girlfriend, you won her heart,’ Nimrod beams. ‘I bought one called Lady Gay.’

Willington throws back his head and laughs, recognising the brand name - and the scenario. As a contemporary of Nimrod’s, he too smuggled coffee when he was in his teens. But despite their jocular manner, both have terrifying memories of the smugglers’ trail, patrolled by Amin’s henchmen who wanted a slice of the action. ‘Soldiers would shoot to kill, they would steal our coffee,’ Nimrod says. ‘If the army was approaching, we would hide in the banana trees.’ When they stopped, everyone put their coffee sacks down silently and in perfect unison.

Daniel Namudoto, 74 - an agricultural officer at Buginyana primary society, higher up Mount Elgon - knew several smugglers who died on the mountain. ‘Many were caught by enemies along the way,’ he says, meaning not just Amin’s soldiers but hostile tribesmen with spears. ‘They killed boys, they killed men, they killed women,’ Daniel says. ‘My own brother, Wolimbwa, was shot dead; I think he was killed by the army. We brought his body back to his house in the village, as is the custom. It took us a week to carry him home.’

Altogether, eight members of Daniel’s ‘clan’ were murdered on the route to Kenya. It begs the question of what the Ugandan police were doing, turning a blind eye to a black-market economy that led to the death of so many of their countrymen. As a law enforcement officer, didn’t Henry have a duty to stop it?

‘I knew very well that it was happening,’ he explains, ‘but these people were very poor. The only way they could sell their coffee was by going to Kenya. I was sympathetic.’ Besides, even as the poor farmers were smuggling coffee along the muddy mountain tracks that we are traversing now, Amin’s army was doing it on main roads. ‘The big smugglers were the army people,’ Henry confirms. ‘They were carrying huge quantities in lorries and trailers, escorted by officers. Colonels were taking it, brigadiers were taking it… and we could see them. How could I stop the poor people and let the big shots carry on?’

Two years later, Amin was ousted by his rival and nemesis, Obote. He fled to Libya, then relocated to Saudi Arabia where he died of multiple organ failure in 2003. Obote, who was no saint himself, began a programme of ‘Cooperative Recovery’, giving the coffee farmers vehicles and restoring the cooperative business model used to trade coffee on Mount Elgon since 1946.

Indeed, when you stroll through the centre of Mbale - less edgy than some towns in sub-Saharan Africa, but with armed police guarding the banks and anyone with anything living behind steel doors - the historical dominance of the co-ops is strongly evident. There on the main drag, with its faded colonial architecture, is the Stalinist former headquarters of the Bugisu Cooperative Union (BCU) - built in 1972, but with revenue from the 1950s and 1960s. In its heyday, the BCU was supplied by 250 primary societies with roughly 100,000 members; Gumutindo, by comparison, has 10 primary societies and 6,000 members. Then, the annual crop on Mount Elgon was 8,000 to 12,000 tonnes; in 2006-2007, the Gumutindo cooperative exported just 436 tonnes.

Mbale was a town built on coffee, but the golden age did not last long. For a decade or so after Amin’s demise, Uganda’s coffee industry was state-run and operated through large unions of cooperative societies, just like the BCU. These powerful unions provided bursaries for students and built new schools. In 1991, however, the coffee market was liberalised, ending the state monopoly on exports and allowing private buyers, including the big multinationals (Nestlé, Kraft et al) and their middlemen (Volcafe, Ecom, Sucafina, OneCafé), to enter the fray. The new competition from the private sector caused most of the coffee unions to collapse; BCU, the most resilient, survived until 2005.

Oliva Kishero, a farmer who grows coffee in Buginyana, knows what some private buyers are like. ‘In 1989,’ she says, ‘I had 150 kilos of coffee to sell. I carried 50 kilos on my back, all the way down the mountain to Kamu’s Market’ - a seething mass of humanity a 30-minute drive away, selling charcoal, bamboo, green bananas, cassava, pineapples and breadfruit. (Here, for the record, we were surrounded by an angry mob who objected to us taking photographs.) ‘I sold my coffee,’ Oliva says, ‘but when I went the following week with another 50 kilos, the market was no longer buying coffee. I walked back up the mountain and stored it in my house because I couldn’t sell it.’

On another occasion, a private buyer came to Oliva’s plantation (she prefers the term ‘coffee garden’) and offered her 3,000 Ugandan shillings per kilogram when Gumutindo was paying 2,800. ‘He took a small amount of my coffee,’ Oliva says, ’saying he would return for more. But he never did.’

It is against this background of uncertainty, unfulfilled promises and every man for himself that the British company Cafédirect arrived on Mount Elgon. Founded on a business model of fairness, integrity and transparency, its ethos could be described as ‘Fairtrade Plus’. First, it is part-owned by the farmers - who make up 20 per cent of the board, ensuring their voice is heard. Then, as with all Fairtrade products, it pays farmers a fair and stable price (an agreed minimum, or the prevailing world market price, whichever is higher) together with a ’social premium’ to be invested in the community.

From the outset, Cafédirect set this premium at 10 per cent of the price received, when the normal Fairtrade premium was five US cents per pound. (In June last year, however, the Fairtrade figure was doubled to 10 US cents per pound.) What’s more, Cafédirect commits to buying a significant amount of coffee in advance, so farmers can raise finance and plan ahead. Finally, 60 per cent of Cafédirect’s own profits are ploughed back into farming communities through its Producer Partnership Programme (PPP) - a farsightedness that goes way beyond Fairtrade. The money pays for management training, education (in areas such as fair trade, democracy and accountability) and organic certification. It is not unusual for Cafédirect to work with producers for three to five years, improving quality and building capacity, before bringing a product to market and reaping the financial benefits.

Much of that work is done on the ground by Twin, the alternative trading company that helped launch many of Britain’s best-known Fairtrade brands - Cafédirect (coffee, tea, cocoa), Divine (chocolate), Oké (bananas) and Liberation (nuts). It is, in many ways, the unsung action hero of Fairtrade. Founded as the Third World Information Network in 1985, the company is adept at supply-chain management and logistics, continuing to ship coffee out of the Dominican Republic when Hurricane Georges struck in 1998, for example. ‘Most buyers got out,’ says Simon Billing of Twin, ‘but we stayed in.’

The same tenacity can be seen in land-locked Uganda, where the coffee produced by Gumutindo is loaded onto trucks that join a 100-vehicle convoy heading for the Kenyan border, then on to the port of Mombasa. Like most of the lorries we see in Uganda, these ones are escorted by armed guards. Early this year, when ethnic violence erupted in Kenya, Twin considered shipping coffee out of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania - but that would have been a break with tradition. In the coffee-smuggling days, Kenya was the bridge between Ugandan farmers and consumers. Symbolically, that remains the case today.

That link would not be complete without Cafédirect, the brand, which bought its first Ugandan coffee from the BCU in 1994 when the industry was on its knees. Worldwide coffee prices had soared - good for farmers in the short term, but attracting get-rich-quick investors who rushed headlong into coffee-processing because the profits were high. Private buyers in Uganda snapped up all the coffee they could, regardless of quality, to feed the insatiable processing mills. Before long, Ugandan coffee had become a laughing stock.

That is why, in 1998, the charismatic Willington Wamayeye left his job at the BCU to build a new cooperative with Cafédirect’s help. Gumutindo (which means ‘excellent quality’ in the local language, Lugisu) started life as a quality-improvement programme to raise the bar for Uganda’s disillusioned farmers.

In the first year, Willington recruited nearly 200 growers from all over Mount Elgon, driving for hours to persuade them of the benefits of producing washed arabica (partly processed gourmet beans) instead of lower-grade unwashed coffee. By focusing on quality and consistency, farmers could rack up a few extra cents, Willington explained. (Today, that ‘quality differential’ ranges from five to 15 US cents per pound, and a grower like Oliva Kishero produces 4,400lb a year.) By boosting the reputation of Ugandan coffee, he told them, the farmers could guarantee themselves a market and an income. Secure in the knowledge that Cafédirect would buy all the high-quality beans they produced, the growers saw sense.

‘I knew some of them from my BCU days,’ Willington says, ‘but they in turn led me to others.’ When his car fell apart, destroyed by the battering it took from potholed mountain roads, he did his rounds on a motorbike. Then, as the number of Gumutindo farmers grew, Cafédirect took the decision to have all the co-op’s coffee certified by the Soil Association - notching up a further organic premium of 20 cents per pound, in addition to the one for quality.

‘We are winning the hearts of farmers with these premiums,’ Nimrod tells me, but Willington puts it another way: ‘The mountain is ours!’ he says, theatrically, while admitting there is still a long way to go. Of the 200,000 smallholders who grow coffee on Mount Elgon, only 6,000 are members of Gumutindo - but that figure has doubled since early 2007. Protected from falling prices and the predatory tactics of private buyers, those farmers are empowered - and thanks to Cafédirect’s education programme (evident from the wall charts we see at a newly built coffee store in Buginyana) six out of 10 Gumutindo farmers now understand the benefits and principles of Fairtrade practices.

At Oliva Kishero’s farm on the slopes of Mount Elgon, you can instantly see the fruits of her labours. Instead of the mud huts and shacks we have seen all the way up the mountain, Oliva lives in a brand-new house with a concrete floor and rendered brick walls - albeit awaiting plaster. In this harsh region, where robbery is rife, the doors are made of steel and the windows are covered by security grills, but that does not detract from her achievement.

‘I have built a house of coffee,’ says Oliva, explaining how her washed arabica commands the highest premiums. From here, it is taken by road to Gumutindo’s depot in Mbale - a 12-hour journey if the roads and weather are bad. Behind the house is a byre housing two or three zebu cattle and a goat. Within minutes we are drinking milk fresh from the cows and being greeted by Oliva’s two youngest daughters, Mariam (five) and Rosette (nine), dressed in their best frocks and curtsying madly. Altogether, Oliva has seven children - modest by Ugandan standards (Daniel Namudoto, her father, has 22 children while Henry Wandwasi has 15) but still a lot of mouths to feed.

‘If it weren’t for the coffee premiums, my older children would not be at school,’ says Oliva, who is treasurer of the Gumutindo cooperative and an inspiration to women farmers. In Uganda, primary education is free but secondary schools are paid for - and there is the additional cost of books and uniforms. On the smuggling trail, Nimrod had told me that his earnings from coffee almost match his net salary as a teacher: about £200 a month, but a sum that can make the difference between quality of life and mere survival.

A short stroll away are Oliva’s coffee gardens - an apt term, since her 2,000 arabica trees grow cheek-by-jowl with tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages, beans and cowpeas (a legume with root nodules that ‘fix’ atmospheric nitrogen in the soil, acting as a natural fertiliser). Through the Producer Partnership Programme, Oliva has learnt to plant tall crops next to her coffee to prevent airborne pesticides blowing across from other farms; anything that is sprayed, such as tomatoes, must be planted downhill of her coffee shrubs. However, as Willington points out, ‘Growing coffee organically is not a problem for our farmers. This is how their fathers did it, since few could afford agrochemicals.’

The coffee itself is magnificent: bushy, symmetrical trees with glossy green foliage, bearing enormous scarlet cherries. When Oliva splits and removes the skin, there are two fat coffee beans inside each, the size and colour of peanuts. ‘Those must be AAA,’ quips Willington - a reference to AA, the highest grade achievable for size and appearance. It will be a bumper crop.

Pruning and maintenance are partly responsible, but the fertile volcanic soil of Mount Elgon is God’s gift to growers. Squatting down, I scoop up a handful of rich brown humus that reminds me, oddly enough, of freshly ground coffee. It is friable, like fine sawdust, but packed with organic matter. In this fecund environment, all manner of edible crops thrive.

On the hillside beyond Oliva’s garden, every square inch of soil is cultivated - with row upon row of golden maize, green bananas, spinach, cassava, root vegetables and millet. It is as far from the Live Aid image of Africa as Konokoyi is from Kenya - and the natural abundance of the landscape reminds me of an important fact: there is no shortage of food in most of rural Africa, simply a lack of access to global markets. Growing subsistence crops may fill stomachs, but it provides no money for building houses or educating a family. Produce grown for cash may fetch a few Ugandan shillings at Kamu’s Market, but it will not bring in the much-needed foreign currency that can transform lives and lever a family out of poverty. That access to global markets is what Cafédirect provides, helped by distant consumers who choose to buy Mount Elgon organic whole beans.

The main agent of transformation, however, is Willington Wamayeye himself. In the sunny walled compound of the Gumutindo cooperative - where groups of women sit on the grass, sorting dried beans by hand - he radiates the kind of infectious enthusiasm that all good entrepreneurs must have. ‘Come back in three years,’ he says, ‘and we will have coffee to rival Ethiopia’s, I promise!’ Twin’s Simon Billing believes that, with Willington’s passion and drive, there is nothing to stop Gumutindo’s coffee rivalling even Kenya’s.

It is a lonely journey, since the recruitment and motivation of Mount Elgon’s farmers has been virtually a one-man show. Without the expertise drafted in from Twin, Willington would have been on his own. ‘That is my biggest regret about the Amin years,’ he says, brow furrowed in thought, ‘that a whole generation of the most senior, educated people in this country were targeted by him and murdered. They would have been my mentors, they were the crème de la crème. In Uganda, there is nobody with much experience.’

As a teenager growing up under Amin, Willington lost many potential role models. ‘One of my uncles disappeared,’ he says, ‘he was quite senior in local administration and had been a functionary with the previous government, the Obote regime. He persisted and remained, he never went into exile.’ One day, after his daughter’s wedding, he left for Mbale in his VW Beetle and was never seen again. ‘We have never found a dead body up until now, and that was in 1978,’ Willington says. ‘If he were alive, he would have come back. We don’t have a gravestone for him, and that is very common here.’

The bishop of the diocese also vanished mysteriously. ‘He performed my school confirmation,’ says Willington, ’so I knew him well. I remember that a teacher from my school, who was from a different tribe, also disappeared. They were all killed, they never came back.’

Even children were not safe, living in an atmosphere of menace. ‘The army visited our school in 1979,’ says Willington, ‘and they demanded to play football with us. We started to play… good football, because we were young and wanted to win… and we scored three goals. Then they started harassing and beating us; they went for us. At half-time, our teacher told us not to score any more goals, but to allow them to score. They managed four during the second half and won, so we were spared. If we’d won, their colleagues would have been unleashed to cane us. I don’t think they would have gone as far as murdering us, only physical punishment.’

On the drive back to Entebbe airport, with all its dark associations of Israeli commando raids, I am reminded that Uganda is far from stable yet. In Kampala, we pass a pick-up truck carrying policemen brandishing Kalashnikovs (’they protect the people, and the army protects the government,’ Willington had explained earlier). Then, on the tarmac at Entebbe, we see rows of helicopters and cargo planes bearing the UN insignia, next to canvas hangars where the next deployment is being discussed. In the north-west, near the Democratic Republic of Congo, tribal warfare is kicking off; in neighbouring Sudan, Kenya and Rwanda there is also ethnic unrest.

Out of this chaos has emerged a man of deep compassion, who cares about his country and now travels the world as an articulate spokesman for fair trade. ‘What I say to these young guys is, “You can be like me”,’ says Willington. ‘I tell them I grew up in the same environment - sharing blankets, sleeping on mats, going to fetch water before school, with no underwear, no shoes until I was 17. I have personal drive, yes - but before I worked within the Fairtrade family, I never felt inspired. It was only when I understood the relationships, understood the benefits for farmers, that I thought, “Yes, this is something worth doing”. You don’t want to pass through the world without leaving footprints behind. Creating employment, changing lives, linking people to people … I think that legacy is very important.’

When TransFair CEO Paul Rice sits across from Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, the differences in their backgrounds couldn’t be more stark.

Scott has spent nearly his entire adult life working at the retail behemoth, with a mandate to increase sales and profits and keep costs as low as possible. Rice, after graduating from Yale University in 1983, spent 11 years working with peasant coffee farmers in Nicaragua trying to squeeze higher prices out of coffee buyers. He set up one of the first cooperatives, with 24 coffee-growing families, who sold their first batch of fair trade product to Europe in 1990 for $1.26 a pound, compared with the 10¢ a pound coffee was selling for in Nicaragua then. “It was an overnight legend in Nicaragua,” recalls Rice.

At one time, that gap might have made it easy to place Rice among Wal-Mart’s detractors, considering the criticism of the chain’s treatment of its own workers, its anti-union stance, and the sweatshop issues it has faced for years. Yet these days, Rice is finding a lot of common ground with Scott—especially since Apr. 1, when Wal-Mart launched three house-brand coffees certified as “fair trade,” meaning they provide a fair price to small farmers. It was a crowning achievement for Rice, now chief executive of TransFair, the U.S. fair-trade industry’s labeling organization. And it was a sign that the fair-trade movement has truly arrived in the U.S. mass market. After all, Wal-Mart is not only the world’s largest retailer but also the one with the broadest reach.

Same Old, Same Old?

For some proponents of fair trade, however, that endorsement of their cause feels more like a co-opting. In trying to boost the participation of Wal-Mart and other large companies such as Procter & Gamble (PG), they fear the whole idea of helping small farmers is getting warped. Many of the beneficiaries, critics say, wind up being the same type of big operations that prospered under the old system.

Take Wal-Mart’s warehouse-club division, Sam’s Club. When Sam’s started offering fair-trade tea, bananas, and roses earlier this year, it seemed like a huge win for the movement, which had already seen sales of fair-trade coffee grow tenfold from 2001 to 2006, to $730 million. “The idea of bringing high-quality items to our members at a great value that were produced in an environmentally and socially responsible way was just too compelling to pass up,” says Gregg Spragg, executive vice-president for merchandising at Sam’s Club, who replied to questions via e-mail.

But all the fair-trade cut flowers and a large quantity of tea, bananas, and sugar imported to the U.S. come from big plantations in places such as Ecuador and Colombia. “The large companies want to continue working with mass producers like plantations rather than going the tougher route, which is identifying small farmers and buying from them,” says Carmen K. Iezzi, executive director of the Fair Trade Federation, a trade group of companies that say they are 100% committed to fair trade.

The Difference Between Coffee and Tea

Wal-Mart officials declined further comment about their fair-trade practices. Iezzi and others aim much of their criticism at TransFair USA, which is expanding fair-trade certification at a frenetic pace. They say that to keep up the pace of expansion, the organization is taking shortcuts that compromise the original concept. “When large, conventional plantations get fair-trade certified for improving practices, we consider that ‘fair-trade lite,’ ” says Rink Dickinson, president and co-founder of Equal Exchange, a West Bridgewater (Mass.) company that is committed to buying only from farmer-run cooperatives. “There may be reforms, but it is a kindler, gentler version of the same old thing and falls short of what some of us are advocating.”

Rice, who started TransFair in 1999, disagrees. “The notion that the standards have been lowered is ill-informed,” he says. “Our objective is to help the poor, whether they own a plot of land or not.”

Part of the problem Rice and Wal-Mart face is the difficulty of applying the same standards of equity and economics to different types of crops. While half of the global production of coffee comes from small farms, it takes a larger operation to compete in bananas, tea, cut flowers, or sugar. “The disadvantaged majority would be locked out of the market if I were to look for only small farms for bananas and tea,” says Rice.

TransFair sets different standards for plantations to be certified as fair trade. They have to pay workers fair wages, allow them to organize into unions, and have strong worker-safety measures. The workers form a group and get part of the premium price (8% to 12% of each sale) that comes with the fair-trade label, for social and business-development projects. “There is a rose farm on top of a hill in Ecuador where the workers wear protective equipment against pesticides, they have free health care, and have invested in their own day-care facility with their project money—and I am proud of that,” says Rice.

Ugly Colonial Legacy

Working against Rice, however, is the perception that plantation owners got where they are by exploiting poor farmers and workers in developing nations. Some of these plantations in previously colonized countries are still owned by colonizers—rich white Europeans. And some in Latin and Central America are owned or controlled by large corporations such as Dole and Del Monte (DLM). “Plantations are the legacy of an unfair system where the elite and the wealthy classes denied small producers their land, and small farmers always got the raw end of the deal,” says Jonathan Rosenthal, CEO of Oké USA, which sells fair-trade-certified fresh fruit bought directly from growers.

Also, there are questions about whether TransFair has the resources it needs to monitor worker conditions, as labor-rights groups do. Those labor groups say it’s hard to keep tabs on workers in countries like Colombia, which hasn’t been a friendly place for trade unions and where workers are generally afraid to speak out. Indeed, none of the flower plantations in Colombia that are certified fair trade have worker unions. “We wonder if TransFair is equipped to deal with worker-rights violations, especially as they expand and get into more complex supply-chain industries like garments,” says Bama Athreya, executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington.

TransFair’s Rice says he will continue his push into other areas, even apparel. He says that when faced with criticism, he likes to remind himself of his experience in Nicaragua. The cooperative he started there had grown to 3,000 families after four years. The families’ lives had improved dramatically—they had electricity and water, they could afford health care, and their children were attending high school and even college for the first time. “It was a transformative experience for me,” says Rice. “And I believed that globally, I could have the same kind of impact if I grow that vision in America.”

Gogoi is a contributing writer for BusinessWeek.com.

Under the carved wooden arches and the soft glow of the gothic St. John’s Lutheran Church in downtown Des Moines, Pastor Rachel Mithelman delivers sermons to about 500 worshipers every weekend on how to live better lives as Christians. She also tells them to buy fair trade coffee and chocolate so that poor farmers around the world are paid a reasonable price for the goods they produce. “We live our lives unjustly in so many avenues, but fair trade is one way to ensure justice, and there is no reason to buy cheap coffee on the backs of poor farmers,” says Mithelman. To back up her point, she serves fair trade coffee during the church’s fellowship hour. And fair trade chocolate is on sale through a baker’s rack display.

It’s easy to attribute the popularity of fair trade products in the U.S. to the growing tide of granola-crunching foodies who shop at Whole Foods (WFMI) and carefully allocate their spending to “ethical” products. After all, gourmet industry commentators at the popular Web site Epicurious refer to fair trade as “the new organic.” But while that group of buyers is certainly growing, fair trade has some of its most loyal supporters in religious organizations. Pastors like Mithelman, and scores of others in denominations ranging from Catholic to Episcopalian, Mennonite to Methodist, are not only heavily promoting fair trade but investing in companies that walk the fair trade line.

Religious Orders
For many church groups, fair trade’s principles, ensuring that more of the retail price for a product goes to the small farmer, and less to retail and wholesale giants, align closely with their religious teachings. Currently, fair trade buyers pay farmers an average of about $1.35 for a pound of coffee, compared to about 70¢ a pound that conventional large companies are paying their farmers.

“People who come to church regularly hear the message of spreading God’s love—with fair trade there is a tangible way of putting their faith and love into action,” says Kattie Somerfeld, fair trade projects coordinator for the Lutheran World Relief, a nonprofit organization based in Baltimore that is also a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. About 3,100 Lutheran congregations around the nation buy fair trade coffee, teas, chocolate, sugar, pecans, and cranberries.

One company benefitting greatly from this religious connection is Equal Exchange, a cooperative based in West Bridgewater, Mass., outside of Boston. About 30% of the company’s annual $30 million in sales comes from faith-based churches. Equal Exchange has even established a separate division that handles such orders. The company also gives back a percentage of such sales to religious nonprofit groups.

For each pound of coffee that Presbyterian churches and churchgoers purchase through the project, for instance, Equal Exchange donates 15¢ to the Presbyterian church to support small-farmer projects in coffee-growing regions. In 2007, Presbyterian purchases generated $23,591 for the fund, which is administered by the Presbyterian Hunger Program. Similarly, Lutheran World Relief receives 20¢ for every pound its members buy.

Youth Appeal
“This program encourages our churchgoers to give back to their church,” says Melanie Hardison, program associate for the coffee project at Presbyterian Church USA.

One of Equal Exchange’s first investments came as a $50,000 loan in 1994 from the Adrian Dominican Sisters. “We basically told them that this would be a high-risk investment, with low returns and no nonprofit tax write-offs,” says Rink Dickinson, president and co-founder of Equal Exchange. “But the Adrian Dominican Sisters were attracted by the impact of our mission.”

More recently, Lutheran World Relief invested $280,000 for an 8% stake in Divine Chocolate, a chocolate cooperative that is co-owned by 40,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana. Last year, Lutherans bought a total of $160,000 worth of Divine chocolate.

For many of the faith-based organizations, fair trade is another way to connect younger members with a relevant and modern message at a time when there is a decline in church attendance and churches are closing around the country. The Protestant church, for instance, is guiding its members on how to live green with better buying choices. “When people who are doubtful or cynical see these proactive messages of direct support for these types of programs, they can relate better to the church. It’s an upbeat message that they can make a difference,” says Hardison.

“Highest Standards”
This evangelical attraction is certainly not lost on corporations like Wal-Mart (WMT). The Bentonville (Ark.)-based company, the largest retailer in the world, has paid close attention to evangelical groups in the past, halting sales of men’s magazines such as Maxim and FHM in 2003 over their racy covers of scantily clad women. And last August, Wal-Mart started stocking a full line of faith-based toys, including David and Goliath action figures and Jonah and the Big Fish figurines.

Wal-Mart wouldn’t comment on whether religious groups’ interest played a role in its fair trade decisions. However, if the company was hoping for an endorsement, several religious groups contacted by BusinessWeek.com said they wouldn’t back Wal-Mart’s fair trade coffee in their churches.

“We are glad that there are more opportunities for people to shop fair trade and impact more farmers’ lives,” says Jacqueline DeCarlo, senior program advisor for Catholic Relief Services, which last year sold $2 million worth of fair trade coffee, chocolate, and crafts. “But we want people to aspire to the highest standards, and in this case companies that offer full commitment to fair trade merit our support.”

Gogoi is a contributing writer for BusinessWeek.com.