I’m a night owl…let me work late into the early morning hours but don’t let me see the sun come up.
Farmers get up early…really early. As a pastor friend said one-time regarding a church retreat when the schedule called for 5:00 AM prayer time, “I don’t believe in God at 5AM!” They do. They are up and going long before 5AM.
Delegations that stay overnight at the remote coffee cooperative are impressed at how early people are up and working. They are also impressed at the grueling work of farming.*
Weeding by hand. Planting by hand. Tending the crops day-in and day-out. Struggling under the horrid heat of the sun. Getting the land ready by moving rocks that come in with the rains. It is hard and when you look at the farmers, themselves, they are lean and leathery from such manual labor.
And if they have a good crop because the rains cooperated, no volcano blew ash on their crops, the winds were not too rough, and they were able to hire enough seasonal workers for harvest…what is their reward?
Little…never enough to really save for the day when the weather, volcanoes, and winds don’t cooperate.
While you go to Starbucks to get your venti sized brewed coffee for $2.45 using about 1 tablespoon of ground coffee, the farmers are getting $2.00 per pound and that is for already processed coffee beans… organic and shade-grown.
Just? Fair? We don’t think so, when it is the farmer who takes all the risks and does most of the work and yet gets so little from that heaven-sent cup of java.
If you want to help, buy your coffee from FarmerShares.com and Their-BucksCoffee.com.
-Kathleen
*If you want to contribute to our sustainable agriculture work online: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/jhc-cdca
