Fair Trade vs. Value Added

Fair trade (FT) coffee is different from most other fair trade items. Most FT products are the result of a worker, craftsman or artist shaping or fashioning raw materials into a finished , value-added product.

This value-added product earns the artisan far more than the raw materials that compose the product, compensating the worker for his/her labor. Consider as fair trade examples:  jewelry from Indonesia, carvings from Africa, baskets from Bangladesh.

“Fair trade coffee” pays the farmer a fair trade price, but only for his raw (oro) or green coffee. Additional processing is required for consumption and this additional processing commands a significant dollar premium.

Other than the indigenous farmers increasing prices for their raw commodity products, in a price sensitive market environment that can easily substitute cheaper coffee alternatives in response to rising prices,—additional revenue streams can only be generated by introducing a value added process: roasting.

Multinational coffee companies have no economic incentive to pioneer a change that could drastically improve the lives of third World coffee farmers, as they capture the economic premium derived from the roasting process.

Our mission is to secure the necessary funding to create a roasting facility for these Mayan descendants—right in their Rainforest tribal community. This simple addition will empower these gentile people to take their coffee from seed to cup. it will enable them to earn from 30-50% more of the specialty coffee dollar.

Please review to the budget breakdown for equipping this facility. If you find that you‘d like to contribute in any away,—please contact us!  postmaster@earthfriendlyfoundation.org

The Earth Friendly Foundation (pending 501c3, IRS # available)

A Social Justice Initiative

To Benefit

The indigenous coffee farmers

Quiche, Guatemala

Kona Coffee

In 1827 while King Kamehameha II visited Europe, he sent the first coffee trees home to the Hawaiian Islands. Coffee was grown on all of the islands until sugar cane and pineapple toke over as the cash crops.

The Kona coast on the Big Island continued to grow coffee because a handful of small farmers, retired cane workers were given mountain land judged unsuitable for cane production. Today, as sugar mills and pineapple canneries shut down, coffee plantations are reappearing on all the islands.

Kona coffee is a protected label. It designates the specific Kona region on the Big Island. Exact percentages of any mix must display on the label. Kona, however is not a quality designation, and there is no quality designation for Kona coffee. Kona coffee is not organic or shade grown, nor is the decaf organically decaffeinated. Only the Peaberry is hand picked. None of the Kona is hand picked, but rather all is machine harvested from big open field company farms.

I have visited these fields and checked the prices and the facts. Kona costs $31.99 / lb.in Maui including delivery. Decaf is $34.99 / Lb.

To its credit the taste is full bodied rich with a pleasant after taste. None that I tasted rated as high as my wife's Earth Friendly Dark Roast and none shared the distinct quality gradation of Guatemala's SHB (strictly hard bean).

The Kona lable demands a premium price

Fair Trade vs Value Added

Fair Trade (FT) coffee is different from most other fair trade items. Most FT products are the result of a worker, craftsman or artist shaping or fashioning raw materials into a finished, value-added product.

This value-added product earns the craftsman far more than the raw materials that compose the product, compensating the worker for his/her labor. Consider as fair trade examples:  jewelry from Indonesia, carvings from Africa, baskets from Bangladesh.

“Fair trade coffee” pays the farmer a fair trade price, but only for his raw (oro) or

green coffee. Additional processing is required for consumption and this additional  processing commands a significant dollar premium.

Other than the indigenous farmers increasing prices for their raw commodity product, in a price-sensitive market environment that can easily substitute cheaper coffee alternatives in response to rising prices,-- additional revenue streams can only be generated by introducing a value added process: roasting.

Multinational coffee companies have no economic incentive to pioneer a change that could drastically improve the lives of Third World coffee farmers, as they capture the economic premium derived from the roasting process.

Our mission is to secure the necessary funding to create a roasting facility for these Mayan descendants—right in their Rainforest tribal community.  This simple addition will empower these gentle people to take their coffee from seed to cup.  It will enable them to earn from 30-50% more of the specialty coffee dollar.

Please review to the budget breakdown for equipping this facility.  If you find that you’d like to contribute in any way—please contact us!

The Earth Friendly Foundation

(pending 501c3, IRS # available)

A Social Justice Initiative

To Benefit

The indigenous coffee farmers

Quiche, Guatemala

EARTH FRIENDLY FOUNDATION

For the sake of total transparency the following articles document the Earth Friendly Foundation

Article I - Name

The name of the Corporation shall be:  Earth Friendly Foundation.

Article II – Registered Agent Address:

Registered office in the state of Delaware is to be located at: 16192 Coastal Highway, Lewes, DE 19958, Sussex County. The name of the registered agent is Harvard Business Services.

Article III – Purpose

The purpose of the corporation is to engage in any lawful act of activity for which corporations may organize under General Corporation Law of Delaware. This corporation shall be nonprofit.

Said corporation is organized exclusively for charitable, educational, environmental purposes, including for such purposes, the making of distributions to organizations that qualify as exempt organizations under section 501(c)(3) of the internal revenue code, or the corresponding section of any future federal tax code. The purpose of this organization is:

·         To promote the well-being of remote mountain -- Guatemala and other -- indigenous coffee farmers.
·         To promote the farmer’s greater involvement in the milling, processing, roasting and export of their coffee.
·         To promote efficiency, product quality and sustainability.
·         To encourage good environmental practices
·         To make small low interest loans to farmers so they can pay for the help needed in harvesting and processing their beans to market standards.
·         Further  specifics will be determined by the organization’s  Bylaws.

Article IV – The Corporation shall not have any capital stock.

Article V – Board of Directors

The Management of the affairs of the corporation shall be vested in a board of directors, as defined by the corporation’s bylaws. No director shall have any right, title, or interest in or to any property of the corporation.

The number of directors constituting the initial board of directors is one. (1) The name and address follows:

Diane E. Hughes, PO Box 9, 1850 Jade Drive, Homer, Alaska, 99603-0009, Acting Chair

Heather Begs, Peace Corps Director in Africa, Acting Sec.

Tatiana Weis, CPA Colorado Springs, Acting Treas.

Jan O'Meara, Former Board Chairperson Homer Museum

Dottie Hill, Board of Directors Haven House

Article VI – Duration/Dissolution

The duration of the corporate existence shall be perpetual until dissolution. Upon the dissolution of the organization, assets of the corporation shall be distributed for one or more exempt purposes within the meaning of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or corresponding section of any future federal tax code, or shall be distributed to  the federal government, or to a state or local government, for a public purpose.

Article VII – Membership

This corporation shall have no members.  

Article VIII – Exemption Requirements

At all times, the following shall operate as conditions restricting the operation and activities of the corporation.

1.        No part of the net earnings of the organization shall inure to the benefit of, or be distributable to its members, trustees, officers, or other private persons, except that organization shall be authorized and empowered to pay reasonable compensation for services rendered and to make payments and distributions in furtherance of the purpose set forth in the purpose clause hereof.

2.       No substantial part of the activities of the corporation shall constitute the carrying on of propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, or any initiative or referendum before the public, and the corporation shall not participate in, or intervene in (including by publication or distribution of statements), any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office.

3.        Notwithstanding any other provisions of this document, the organization shall not carry on any other activities not permitted to be carried on by an organization exempt from federal income tax under Section 502(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code or corresponding section of any future tax code, or by an organization, contributions to which are deductible under section 170(c) (2) of the Internal Revenue Code, or corresponding section of any future tax code.

Article IX – Incorporators

The name and mailing address of the incorporator is as follows:

Diane E. Hughes, PO Box 9, Homer, Alaska 99603-0009

I, the undersigned, for the purpose of forming a corporation under the laws of the state of Delaware, do make, file and record this Certificate, and do certify that the facts herein stated are true, and I have accordingly hereunto set my hand this eighth day of April, A.D. 2010.

By:____________________________                                      

(Incorporator)

Name:  Diane E. Hughes

IRS form 1023 for 501c3 submitted 7/17/2011 pending

EARTH FRIENDLY FOUNDATION MISSION

Mission Statement:

The Earth Friendly Foundation is dedicated to promoting the well-being of remote, mountain – Guatemala and other – indigenous coffee farmers. EFF promotes the farmer’s greater involvement in the milling, processing, roasting and export of their coffee through:

·         Education -- promoting efficiency, quality, consistency, and sustainable practices
·         Environmental conservation and sustainability
·         Roasting equipment and supervision
·         Fair Trade, Chemical Free, Organic, Shade Grown and Quality certifications
·         Marketing development and guidance,

to the end of greater prosperity, health, and children’s education among the participating indigenous family farmers and their community.

Vision:
·         EFF envisions a just segment of the coffee industry wherein indigenous native farmers leverage their own isolation and their natural resources into a specialty coffee superior in all respects to its mechanized farm counterpart. Thus, these remote and isolated farm families can gain the resources to integrate themselves into modern society on their own terms.
·         The greater involvement these farmers achieve in the supply chain of the world coffee market, the greater their revenue and integration into society and the greater their ability to care for their own health and education within their own culture and at their own pace.
·         The growing demand for high quality organic coffee presents exciting opportunity for economic growth within the native community.
·         The success of this initiative is in part dependent on production of a superior coffee product. A fair trade initiative is only sustainable when the end customer receives a superior product at a reasonable price. It costs more to harvest organic, hand picked coffee from remote high altitude rainforests. The remoteness alone presents a transportation problem. Rains wash out the roads. There are mudslides, and then there are the coyotes. The product must sell at a premium; it cannot sustain itself in the market if it lacks the quality to justify that premium. The product (to be sustainable) must be superior in perception and reality. Fortuitously the quality is there. The official quality grading of these high altitude hard beans rates SHB, Strictly Hard Beans and is the highest altitude quality gradation in Central America. A primary aim of EFF is the public recognition of this SHB quality gradation
·         Furthermore, maintaining coffee trees beneath the natural forest canopy is the very salvation of that Rainforest. In contrast to the slash and burn, open field cultivation of coffee which is the rule, this harvesting in the natural symbiotic forest has a dramatically positive environmental impact. Environmental considerations must extend to every phase of coffee production.

Goals:

·         A roaster for the Maya Ixil or other indigenous cooperativa.
·         Involve indigenous Mayan farmers and families in the processing and production of a very high quality, roasted, value added product.
·         Sell directly to the US distributor—or even directly to the customer, thus replacing the out sourced miller, the exporter, the importer and the roaster, realizing added revenue of a vertically integrated supply chain.
·         Educate the indigenous producers in the necessity of offering:
       o   A competitive price and quality of product
       o   Consistency, reliability and service (the added value necessary in the US market)
·         The importance of sanitation, safety, and chemical free criteria
·         The importance of ecological criteria at every level
·         To the end -- that the village enterprise will be sustainable and replicate in other countries, on other continents.

Objectives:

·         A grant from a major institution that will fund the roaster and the education needed
·         Ongoing fund raising to further finance: quality control, supervision and -- replication.
·         Maintain strict separation of the Earth Friendly Foundation from the Earth Friendly Coffee Company, a “C” corporation while offering the Cooperativa a legitimate distribution vehicle and access ti the North American market.
·         Fill out the Board with independent community leaders and ones with appropriate expertise --- persons willing and motivated to achieving these goals
·         Achieve an annual budget of $1 million within three or four years.
·         Add at least one other cooperativa and roaster with in 3 years.
·         Advance the SHB metric of quality. Commit R&D money to quality assessment chemical analysis and quality control.
·         Keep administrative overhead to a minimum

Programs:

·         Start simple; see the roaster program through to product delivery as the initial single focus.

Fair Trade Coffee

I here two things, actually three in the market.

1. "Every body has fair trade coffee now, so I can just buy it at the store."
2. "I want to buy local for environmental reasons."
3. "It doesnt taste any better than store coffee."

And yes there is a problem. Five years ago, fair trade coffee ment remote mountains family farmers who had the best coffee, but following years of revolution and a glut on the coffee market the farmers were taken advantage of by unscrupulus Coyoties. Fair trade ment a fair price to those farmers and a quality, but often rough coffee to the US consumer at a modest price.

Today many less needy producers of of lessor quality coffee, grown in cultivated fields, obtain fair trade certification. This creritfication means less. Fair trade to the farmer means a lower price than his first quality coffe brings on the market, so he tends to sell secondario or a blend as fair trade coffee.

The US importer, faced with a record high commodity price for coffee, tends to accept the fair trade organic certification (fto) and a lessor quality coffee in supplying the fair trade market segment. As a result quality suffers, the consumer gets a mediocer cup of coffee and the remote high mountain Mayan family farmer still faces the challenge of bringing his truely high quality hand picked coffee to market.

A few direct trade quality coffe enterprises still take the high road, buying at a truely premium price the best high mountain coffee whilst monetering the environment and the distribution of funds from the cooperativa to the family farmers and their community. European and Japanees coffee buyers compete for the same high quality product. Their cost runs something like "C" market plus 70 cents per pound plus import costs which have escilated as well. Fair Trade pricing on the otherhand brings in only "C" market plus 20 cents -- 50 cents less than the good stuff.

This Stanford Social Innovation article, linked above, tells it all. If you want truely excellent coffee and tuely help the endigenous farmers, be very careful in your selection of producer/importer. It is probably not local, probably not a brand name, and probably not at the store. SHB Arabica marks the highest quality gradation for Central American coffee. The SHB stands for strictly hard beans, European prep and above 5,000 ft. The quality is in the bean.

Reference: scaa.org
fairtradefederation.org
http://gcqri.org/gcqri-funding-agreement/
http://www.cupofexcellence.org/CountryPrograms/Guatemala/2011Program/WinningFarms/tabid/736/Default.aspx

Dunkin Donuts and the Cost of Coffee; How to Brew a Good Cup of Coffee

Coffee prices on the commodity market run their highest in a decade, and the good stuff is expensive, but maybe not by the cup. Consumers claims the good coffee is often less expensive by the cup because you need less of it to get the full rich taste.

This morning, I measured my small press with a measuring cup and found it to brew just over one and a half cups. I weighed my scoop of coffee as 0.27 oz. The coffee sells for approximately $16 per pound that's $1.00 per ounce or $0.27 a scoop. Dividing that by one and a half cups makes it $0.18 per cup, substantially less than store bought coffee. Admittedly, my small press captures more of the rich taste of the good coffee.