In addition, next week two TransFair employees from the US will be visiting Ethiopia and I will be accompanying them to visit a few of the coffee farmers in the south. Fun fun. After that, I have about a week left to tie-up loose ends and finish up my work before spending some time traveling and exploring the culture in greater depth.

In terms of work, I will be helping the SCFCU mainly with fair trade certification issues. SCFCU is a union of 47 individual co-ops representing about 9,000 farmers in the southern area of Ethiopia called Sidama.

Please describe what the organization/company you work with does, how it is set up and where it is located?
I worked with Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union (SCFCU) which is a coffee farming union setup by the Ethiopian government in 2001 to organize and represent 47 cooperatives and 87,000 small farmers. Our main office is located [...]

One Acre Fund (OAF) is an NGO that works with small-scale farmers in East Africa (currently Kenya and Rwanda). The organization operates like a business. It provides loans of farming inputs, such as seed and fertilizer, to farmers at the beginning of the growing season. Farmers receive training from OAF field staff on land preparation, [...]

Transfair USA, (TFUSA) is an organization that enables sustainable development and community empowerment by cultivating a more equitable trade environment that will benefit farmers, workers, consumers, industry and the earth.
Transfair certifies and promotes fair-trade for various commodities; in Rwanda they work with four coffee unions to build business capacity and certify them so that they [...]