Equal Exchange News
Speed and ability count in the picking of the coffee bean. An experienced coffee picker can earn up to $10 a day (lunch included) during peak harvest season- an important contribution to family income in Nicaragua where 60% of the population earns less than one dollar a day. Cooperatives and small-scale farmers working with Lutheran World Relief (LWR) pay attention to providing a fair wage to their workers.
An ecological wet mill helps workers process coffee. Wet mills like this are designed to reduce water consumption by up to 70% and eliminate the extremely harmful contamination to ground water that often occurs during traditional coffee processing. LWR’s ACORDAR(Alliance to Create Rural Development through Agribusiness Relationships)project will recondition an additional 180 wet mill processors used by participating farmers. Harvesting ripened coffee beans is an important step in quality control. Farmers in LWR’s ACORDAR project are trained to identify and pick only those beans that are at their optimal level of ripeness. Increased quality means increased profit for small-scale farmers.
Did you know?
Traditional coffee growing and processing leads to deforestation and contaminates ground water. Lutheran World Relief’s ACORDAR project works with small-scale cooperatives to:
Convert to organic farming
Fund environmentally responsible coffee processing
Train farmers in planting methods that increase biological diversity
Encourage farmers to make and use organic compost
Improve the quality of their coffee beans
Access international and Fair Trade coffee markets
“Awaken your consciousness…fairly traded coffee…from small farmers…savor the world in your cup.”
