Small Farmers, Big Change Introduction to Fair Trade & Equal Exchange’s Faith-Based Programs Introduction and welcome. This presentation was created to explain the basics of the way Equal Exchange practices fair trade, organic farming and suggest ways that faith-based congregations and community groups can connect to their food sources.

Equal Exchange’s Mission To build long-term partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relations between farmers and consumers, and to demonstrate, through our success, the viability of worker cooperatives and fair trade. Equal Exchange was founded in 1986 as the first Fair Trade coffee company in U.S. Our products are, and have always been, 100% Fair Trade. As a worker-owned cooperative, we have a one worker, one vote model. We maintain a 4 to 1 salary ratio: the highest salary can only be four times the lowest. We operate at a small 2-5% profit, proving that our mission-driven business model is sustainable and replicable. If we ever decided to sell the company, all remaining profits would go to other Fair Trade organizations

Who We are and What We Believe In Double click on black square for 2 minute video intro to Equal Exchange or go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Cx5Jn9hgA&t=79s to play the video from YouTube.

Back in 1986, the founders of Equal Exchange saw that our food system was broken. Disconnect between people and the source of their food Increased use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides Farmers in the Global South are particularly vulnerable The founders realized that people in the US knew less and less about where their food came from, or the farmers who grew it. Around the world, in order to stay afloat, farmers were forced to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides, harming their health and their environment. Increasingly more food was imported, and international farmers, mostly in the Global South, were unprotected by U.S. labor and environmental laws. The founders came up with a business model to change this.

Today, EE works with about 40 small-scale farmer Cooperatives in 20 countries 12 of these are coffee cooperatives; Coffee makes up approximately 70% of EE’s products, but we also source tea, chocolate, nuts, olive oil, dried fruit, bananas and avocados

Why Coffee, Cocoa and Tea? None of these products can be grown in the US, so all are imported. As a result, we are disconnected from the sources of these everyday items and the farmers who grew them, many of whom face real challenges. Special challenges facing coffee/chocolate/tea producers include: For coffee: 25 million people grow coffee worldwide 70% of the world’s coffee is grown by small-scale coffee farmers with just 5–8 acres each. Coffee is the largest food import in the U.S. -- and we consume over 20% of the world’s coffee. For chocolate: 70% of the world’s chocolate comes from West Africa, where forced child labor in the cocoa industry is rampant. Major chocolate corporations – such as Hershey, Nestle, and Mars – have done little to address this problem. For tea: Most of the world’s tea is grown on large plantations, a relic of the colonial era in Asia. (pictured left to right: cocoa, coffee, and tea)

Conventional Farming Leaves Farmers Struggling Volatile market prices No direct access to the international market Difficult to obtain credit Volatile market prices usually do not meet the costs of growing coffee. Small farmers have no direct access to the market, making them reliant on predatory middlemen. Every middleman on the chain gets paid a bit more, with the farmer, who did all the work, being paid the least. Because coffee is an annual harvest, most coffee farmers have to make their annual harvest payment last an entire year. Because conventional farmers don’t receive a fair price, they often take out loans to cover their expenses in the lean months, keeping them in chronic debt.

Supply Chain Comparison You can see in this diagram that Equal Exchange’s system bypasses many middle men who each take a cut out of the price paid to farmers. Rather than supplying a commodity to a faceless buyer farther down the chain, farmers in the fair trade system develop long-term, direct relationships with fair trade organizations such as Equal Exchange. Fair traders are committed to buying from and supporting their co-op partners year after year. Equal Exchange trades with democratically-run farmer co-operatives: businesses that are owned and governed democratically by the farmers - so that the benefits of trade can have a truly transformative effect on the lives of the farmers and their communities. Co-ops benefit farmers in many ways: Small farmers can gain access to the international market directly, with a voice in the process and the ability to negotiate their own contracts & partnerships. Cooperatives receive fair trade social premiums, which farmers-members can determine how to use. They know best what the community needs most & now they can afford to get it. (For example: health clinics, schools, offices, warehouses, processing plants for their crops.) Only by pooling community resources, in the form of these premiums, can large projects like these be successful. Cooperatives provide long-term stability for farmers by changing the way trade is done. Trading with individual farmers does not have this same capacity for broad social change.

Conventional (non-organic) Farming is Harmful for Farmers, Animals & the Planet Clear-cutting forests Soil erosion Use of chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers Conventional farms often clear-cut trees in order to plant a monoculture of coffee. The removal of trees leads to soil erosion, ultimately making farmland less productive. With the soil’s natural fertility depleted, conventional farms rely on chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, which are harmful for the environment and for people’s health. Picutured is a clear-cut forest in Peru that has suffered a landslide due to deforestation.

How does Fair Trade work? Fair Trade organizations partner with democratic farmer cooperatives, eliminating middle people—more benefits to farmers and a fair price. Long-term direct relationships with a partner that farmers can rely upon Financial loans to farmers so that they can plan and plant for the upcoming year before they receive their money from the harvest. Two of the most well-known tenets of fair trade are the guaranteed minimum price & the social premiums. The coffee’s market price fluctuates widely, fair trade mitigates the dips and always pays more per pound, even when market prices are high. The F.T. minimum price is paid to small farming co-ops to cover the cost of sustainable production. While not all fair trade products have a set minimum price, coffee does. Currently this is set at $1.40/lb for conventional & $1.70/lb for organic. This is an international standard set by a group called the Fair Trade Labeling Organization. EE has recently paid $3.40 to $3.90 per pound for coffee An additional F.T. social premium of $0.20 per lb. of coffee is paid to the small farming co-operatives for community investment (infrastructure, healthcare, education, etc.). In times when the volatile market goes above the FT minimum, the market price is used as the minimum and the premium is still paid above this. In addition to a fair price, farmers also have access to credit, allowing them to avoid predatory loans that keep them in debt.

Faith groups in the United States have a long history of supporting Fair Trade 1946 – Self Help Crafts (later Ten Thousand Villages) founded by Mennonite Central Committee 1949 – SERRV founded by Church of the Brethren 1996 – Equal Exchange Interfaith Program starts offering affordable, accessible fair trade, organic products to congregations across the US Fair Trade in America has roots in faith-based organizations. It’s a way for people of faith to live out their values, using everyday products.

Equal Exchange’s Faith-Based Model A wholesale program with a mark up Congregations serve fair trade coffee and tea after services Sell the products at holiday bazaars & events Equal Exchange has partnerships with 12 different faith groups, faith-based relief, development and human rights organizations to help communities learn about and promote Fair Trade Faith-based and community organizations can get access to affordable, organic products and are connected with the small farmers who grow them. Equal Exchange’s programs are an easy way to put your faith and values into action. For each purchase made through our partnerships, a portion goes into a Small Farmer Fund that our partner organizations uses in their relief and development work. In 2016, more than 8,000 congregations and communities across the country participated in the program.

A church in Quincy, MA holds a fair trade sale after worship.

Faith-based Partnerships American Friends Service Committee (Quaker), 1999 Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, 2011 Catholic Relief Services, 2007 Church of the Brethren, 2002 Disciples of Christ, 2008 Episcopal Relief & Development 2015 Jewish Fair Trade Project, 2014 Mennonite Central Committee, 2003 Presbyterian Church (USA), 2001 United Church of Christ, 2004 United Methodist Committee on Relief, 2002 Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, 2001  

The _________ Fair Trade Project Partnership mission statement/description Small Farmer Fund contribution (per pound and most recent year/in total) Projects the partnership is currently working on If you’d like to talk about the partnership specific Fair Trade Project in your community, you can get this information from Equal Exchange here: http://equalexchange.coop/our-partners/interfaith-partners Or contact customer service for your specific partnership’s information. You may delete this slide if it’s not applicable to your group.

Getting the Community Involved Serve fairly traded coffee, tea, and chocolate in your congregation Sell fair trade products at monthly sales or holiday bazaars Design Fair Trade fund – raising projects Organize an educational program for adults or children with fun activities like coffee and chocolate tastings This is a great place for you to talk about how you, or your congregation, have used fair trade products after services, at sales, fairs, fundraisers, etc. We offer many ideas for getting your community directly involved. Learn more at :http://equalexchange.coop/ee-and-you/community

Visit Farmers on a Delegation Equal Exchange coordinates delegation trips to visit our coffee farmer partners. Travel to Nicaragua, stay with famer families in a homestay, and learn about the coffee process starting at the source! To find out more about interfaith delegation opportunities visit: http://uucsj.org/journeys/nicaragua/ or contact The Presbyterian Hunger Program for Presbyterian trips.

Solidarity Tastes Delicious! There is a direct connection between your fair trade purchases and improving the lives of farming families, greening our world and changing the corporate food system. Thank you for your support of authentic fair trade.