wfn.org | UMCOR promotes fair trade cup of cocoa

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Oct. 29, 2003  News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212)870-38037New York
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NEW YORK (UMNS) - Abel Fernandez wants United Methodists to buy fair trade
cocoa products.

Fernandez, who is production and export manager for the National
Confederation of Dominican Cocoa Producers, says that buying cocoa produced
by the 9,000 small farmers who belong to the organization will improve the
lives of the farmers and their communities in the Dominican Republic.

Alison Booth wants United Methodists to buy the cocoa, too - along with other
fair trade products such as coffee and tea. As one of the worker-owners of
the Canton, Mass.-based Equal Exchange, she has witnessed sales through the
company's interfaith program increase to $1.7 million in 2002.

And June Kim, an executive with the United Methodist Committee on Relief,
wants United Methodists to participate in the relief agency's coffee project
with Equal Exchange because their purchases help UMCOR earn money to benefit
an even larger number of small farmers.

The UMCOR Coffee Project, in collaboration with Equal Exchange, started with
a "soft launch" of 250 United Methodist congregations in April 2002,
according to Kim, and now has double that participation. To demonstrate how
the project has expanded to include other products, she prepared an array of
brownies and cakes, using the fair trade organic baking cocoa powder, and
served it with cups of the fair trade cocoa, coffee and tea during an Oct. 27
informational session in New York.

Internationally-recognized fair trade standards require paying a fair price
to farmers, including a guaranteed minimum when market prices are low;
working directly with certified, democratically-run farming cooperatives; and
encouraging ecologically sustainable farming practices. Equal Exchange,
founded in 1986, uses those practices to offer consumers coffee, tea and
cocoa direct from small-scale farmer cooperatives in Latin America, Africa
and Asia.

The Dominican farmers group, known as CONACADO, is one of the cooperatives. A
major goal of the cooperatives, Fernandez says, is to find alternative
options to increase the revenues of its members. One option, for example, is
helping farmers ferment their cocoa beans for use in chocolate bars. "By
fermenting the beans, we get better quality," he explains.

Ten percent of CONACADO's annual crop yield goes to the fair trade market.
The money earned back - around $150,000 - is reinvested in product
improvements as well as dealing with community needs, such as health care and
education.

"The importance of working in fair trade was demonstrated for our
organization five years ago," Fernandez says, describing how the money earned
from that market was used to help with the country's rehabilitation after the
Dominican Republic was struck by Hurricane Georges.

United Methodists who serve cocoa, coffee or tea at church events or use the
products as a fundraising project benefit the farmers both through the direct
sales and the return on those sales. When church members make wholesale
purchases of coffee, tea and cocoa, UMCOR receives 15 to 20 cents a package
from Equal Exchange, Kim explains. That money also goes back to small
farmers.

Coffee prices are competitive with other gourmet and organic coffees,
according to Booth, although a bit more expensive than poorer quality
commercial brands. In 2002, United Methodists bought 11,000 pounds of fair
trade coffee through Equal Exchange, she says.

And they are not the only Christians participating in the program. Equal
Exchange also has formal partnerships with Lutheran World Relief, the
Presbyterian Church USA, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, the
American Friends Service Committee, the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonite
Central Committee, and, beginning in November, with Catholic Relief Services.

More information about the UMCOR project can be found at
http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/hunger/coffee.cfm online. Informational brochures
with order forms also are available through the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries service center by calling toll free at (800) 305-9857 and
asking for stock no. 05589.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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