Fitting for a country with a $1,000 GDP
My main project for MBAs Without Borders and TransFair USA (the two organizations responsible for sending me to Ethiopia) is to help SCFCU (Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union) with getting farmers Fair Trade certified. SCFCU is a union, made up of 47 cooperatives representing over 87,000 farmers (I made a mistake in my earlier blog entry when I said they represented 9,000 farmers) and is the second largest coffee producer in Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s largest export is coffee so it’s fair to say that SCFCU has a direct influence on a large portion of the country’s population. With such importance, you would think that the SCFCU would have plenty of resources to do its job. But alas, this is Africa and it is surprising how few resources we have. Our offices are not “nice” by western standards (if only you saw our bathroom) and everything we use must be conserved. But the humble nature of SCFCU is fitting for a country with a GDP per capita of $1000 and whose farmers have faced several droughts and famines.
So far, I have worked on writing a proposal for upgrading the I.T. (information technology) resources of SCFCU. We have a total of 6 computers all with serious problems. My first week here, I managed to remove over a thousand virus-infected files from two computers. You might think that being a coffee farmer has little to do with computers. But I assure you that the production and exporting of coffee, especially with various international certifications and inspections (fair trade, organic, environmentally sustainable practices) that there is a ton of record keeping and international communication. In addition to the I.T. work, I have been updating SCFCU’s Fair Trade Premium Report which states how the extra money associated with fair trade is being spent. Most of the cooperatives build roads, schools, grain mills or install electricity. No one else is providing these basic community services so it’s up to the farmers to do it themselves. But its heart warming to see Ethiopians slowly lifting themselves out of poverty.
Let me back up, fair trade is a new concept to most folks not working in the industry. The basic idea is that buyers of coffee (i.e. the person going to the grocery store) pays a bit more than they have to under the assumption that the money is going directly to benefit the farmers. You see, most of the value chain of coffee goes to international companies. For each $3 cup of Starbucks coffee, an average of 3 cents goes to the farmer. Most people call that getting screwed. So, at the heart of the fair trade movement is the concept of development, bringing greater economic and social equality to those in impoverished countries. It is a wonderful movement and its growing fast as more people are recognizing the value of helping the poor and destitute. The benefits of fair trade are huge, poor African communities are now able to build their own schools! Forget about the “fish and fishing pole” metaphor, this is sustainable change from the inside out.