Sustainability

Indigenous mountain farmers worry at least as much about sustainability as about fair trade prices. Yes the family may cover the price of harvest this year but what about next year. Will the harvest dry properly? Will the rain ruin the drying process? How do I get my product to market? How do I know what the beans are worth? The Mayan farmers speak neither English nor Spanish. They and their cooperativas are vulnerable to exploitation. The actions of NGOs and nonprofits, while always well intended, may not be sustainable. There are many examples: wet-mills without water, padlocked latrines, schools-without-teachers, even resentment, indolence and backlash.

Sustainability is a prime requisite of successful entrepreneurial activity, whether in the most primitive agrarian society, or in the advanced technological era. Sustainability is the reason for the new business school emphasis on "for-profit companies with a social mission." The for-profit company fosters just such critical sustainability. EFC's Our sustainability depends entirely on the sustainability, profitability, quality and reliability of our indigenous source. Working with the farmers and their cooperativas, gives them the means to invest in their own critical harvesting and processing needs as they learn to see them.

EFC's business model, with its well developed logistics, finance, and business principles, provides the indigenous cooperativa a lasting framework of knowledge and of market connection. The first priority of enterprise is survival, and that survival requires a high quality and dependable source of material. That supply is dependent upon land, labor, capital and entrepreneurial ability. When the Fair Trade importer embraces the supply chain, as a for-profit enterprise, the involvement leads to a cultivation of the farmer-supplier as part of the supply chain. The farmer has the high mountain hectares, and we bring access to the American consumer. In so doing the farmer -supplier develops the metrics of quality, a connection with the transportation, processing and export of the product and a much more sustainable and competitive position in the market place.

There are winners and losers. The high profit margin in the coffee-commodity-supply-chain traditionally rests with the roaster. The pergamino, is milled in the city, so the farmer is paid only a fraction of what the green beans are worth. The miller therefore takes a bigger cut than the farmer's profit. The exporter comes next with his share of the profit, then the product becomes a part of the whole World coffee commodity market. Several middle men are eliminated when the farmer-supplier forms a functioning Cooperativa and gets involved with the milling, the roasting and the shipping. Negotiating directly with the for-profit-Fair-Trade-importer, leads to a more efficient market, a serious competitive advantage for the farmer and likely a superior product. More important the farmer now has a sustainable relationship with the World coffee market, one that will give his family a greater share of the revenue, and a better chance to survive the natural ups and downs of the harvest and the coffee business.