So, what gets you up and going in the mornings?
A brisk jog around the block? A nice hot shower? Or those three or four cups of coffee you simply can’t function without? If you’re among the majority, then it’s the coffee… After all, coffee is the second most valuable traded commodity in the world. What’s the first, you ask?
Oil.
In the United States, coffee is our largest food import and is consumed by more that 130 million consumers nationwide. That cup of Joe in your hand right now? It was most likely imported from small family-operated coffee farms located in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Peru, El Salvador, Ecuador, Venezuela, Honduras, Uganda, Thailand, Nicaragua, India, or Papua New Guinea.
So, what’s the problem here?
While the global coffee industry earns more than $60 billion annually, coffee farmers earn as little as 4 cents per pound for the coffee that they pick by hand, 25 million of those farming families depend on the success of their coffee crop as their only source of income, and larger-scale plantations are fraught with shockingly low wages and appalling child-labor. In Latin America, home to coffee farmers who produce more than 80% of the beans used for higher-grade and specialty coffees, families are living in sheer poverty. In Guatemala,for example, 70 children out of every 1,000 die before age 5; 51 of those children will not live to reach their first birthdays.
That cup of Joe not tasting quite as good as it was a minute ago, is it?
So, what can you do?
First and foremost, buy Fair Trade products as often as you can- especially coffee.
And then get involved with groups, such as Coffee Kids, who make it a priority to help improve the quality of life for children, women, and men in coffee-producing regions around the world.
The best part of waking up?
Knowing that you can make a difference.
