Parish Purchases of Fair Trade Coffee Jump 64% in Past Year

Baltimore, April 3, 2003 — Lutheran parishes bought 50 tons of fairly traded products through the LWR Coffee Project last year, a 64 percent increase from the year before. The growth in sales comes at a time of deep crisis for small coffee farmers overseas, the main beneficiaries of fair trade.

Nearly 2,900 parishes have now taken part in the six-year project, with 445 joining last year. The LWR project encourages parishes to purchase coffee, tea and cocoa that meet the tenets of fair trade -- guarantee a fair price, do business with democratically run co-ops, provide affordable credit and promote sustainable farming practices. Prices for conventional coffee were so low last year that Equal Exchange, the Boston-based fair trade organization that is LWR's partner in the project, paid small farmers more than $1 million in above-market, fair trade premiums.

The extra money makes a difference. "Thanks to God and to Equal Exchange, we will not die of hunger. We will not lose our land to the banks. Our children can attend school," an El Salvador coffee farmer, Jose Luis Castillo, told project participants who visited his co-op earlier this year. His words reflect the positive impact of fair trade on struggling farmers, an impact increasingly tied to faith-based projects. Methodists, Presbyterians and others now have projects similar to the LWR Coffee Project.

Coffee purchases through these faith-based projects jumped 100 percent at Equal Exchange last year and accounted for half the organization's annual growth.

Meanwhile, for the second year in a row, the conventional coffee market paid small farmers across Central America and in other coffee-growing regions a price that was well below the cost of production. Farmers like Castillo — whose coffee is certified fair trade and has a growing market in U.S. parishes — earned two to four times as much as the conventional price.

"I want to send my thanks to all of the churches that purchase our coffee," Castillo told the visiting U.S. parishioners in January. He was speaking for his wife, his five children and for his co-op, a long-time partner of Equal Exchange.

Speaking for the modest but growing fraction of the world's three million small coffee farmers now able to do business more fairly because of fair trade, Castillo added: "It is thanks to you that we have a seed of hope in our lives."