1. 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.

2. 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

3. Who We are and What We Believe In
Double click on black square for 2 minute video intro to Equal Exchange or go to to play the video from YouTube.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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)

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

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

14. 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

15. 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:
Or contact customer service for your specific partnership’s information.
You may delete this slide if it’s not applicable to your group.

16. 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 :

17. 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: or contact The Presbyterian Hunger Program for Presbyterian trips.

18. 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.