Brewing Hope: Bringing Fair Trade Coffee from Chiapas to Ann Arbor

Brewing Hope is a new project created by Ann Arbor residents and led by a group of University of Michigan students who want to create a direct relationship with farmers from Chiapas, Mexico. available along with the coffee.

Ann Arbor, MI July 3, 2004 -- Brewing Hope is a new project created by Ann Arbor residents and led by a group of University of Michigan students who want to create a direct relationship with farmers from Chiapas, Mexico. Their goal is to bring Fair Trade coffee directly from one cooperative in ChiapasYachilto local cafes and grocery stores in Ann Arbor, while educating consumers about the social and environmental benefits of fair trade coffee through educational pamphlets that will be available along with the coffee.

Brewing Hope has already been in contact with several Ann Arbor coffee shop owners who have expressed enthusiasm for this project. Brewing Hope has also partnered with Higher Grounds Trading Co., Michigans only 100% fair trade gourmet coffee company, because of the companys unique relationship with many fair trade farming co-ops in Chiapas. Higher Grounds will be contracting a local Ann Arbor roaster, Perk and Brew, to roast, package, and distribute the coffee. The first order of coffee from Yachil arrived in Ann Arbor on June 9th. From Aug. 15th to Aug. 23rd, Brewing Hope, in conjunction with Higher Grounds Trading Co., will lead a delegation of University of Michigan students to Chiapas. They will investigate the effects of the coffee crisis in Chiapas and the important role of fair trade and organic agriculture in providing Ann Arbors partner cooperative, Yachil, with liveable wages and a healthy environment.

The delegation will meet with the fair trade coffee co-op to request a formal partnership with the community of Santa Catarina, one of the central villages within Yachil Xojobal Chulchan (The New Light in the Sky) cooperative.

Marlowe Coolican, one of the students going on the delegation, says, Its exciting to be a part of a trip where I am actually going to take part in establishing a new relationship between my hometown and the community we are visiting. I always try to buy fair trade coffee in Ann Arbor, because I believe it is a good economic alternative, but actually being able to meet and live with the farmers who grow this coffee makes it even more personal.

The Yachil cooperative represents about 850 coffee producing families who have been outspoken in their goals of obtaining sustainability and peace. The cooperative, which produces gourmet fair trade and organically-grown coffee, has had difficulty selling at fair prices due to the global coffee crisis and instability in the region. Chiapas has been the scene of an on-going low intensity war waged against Mayan peoples striving for indigenous rights and autonomy. While the on-going threat of further violence remains, the coffee farmers are faced with the worst coffee crisis in history.

After spending nearly a year with Mayan coffee producers in Chiapas, Mexico, and witnessing firsthand the coffee crisis on small-scale coffee producers, Chris and Jody Treter returned to Michigan to form Higher Grounds Trading Co. The partnership between Brewing Hope and Higher Grounds Trading Co. serves to grow a market for Yachils coffee, which, in turn, gives the farmers control over their livelihoods.

Coffee prices on New York's Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange -- which provides the industry with its benchmark for beans -- currently hover around 50 cents a pound, down more than 80 percent from their peak in 1997 and about 30 cents below the cost of production. Over 2/3 of Mexicos coffee producers are indigenous campesinos holding less than 5 acres of land. These small farmers are the most vulnerable to the world market, and the hardest hit by the coffee crisis. At the same time as record lows occur in the price of coffee on the global market, conventional coffee companies are making record profits.

The fair trade certification system, used by Higher Grounds Trading Co. corrects market imbalances by guaranteeing at least US $1.26 per pound for small farmers' harvests, and encouraging organic and sustainable growing methods. With a fair and stable income, coffee growers can invest in their families' health care and education. The new Brewing Hope project in Ann Arbor hopes to go a step beyond fair trade certification by creating a direct relationship between two communities thousands of miles apart. Through activities such as the student delegation in August, and future reciprocal visits by Chiapas farmers to Ann Arbor, Higher Grounds and Brewing Hope put profit back into coffee producing communities in Chiapas while building awareness in Ann Arbor.

To learn more about the Yachil coffee in Ann Arbor, or being a part of this project by ordering the coffee, contact Chris Treter at 231-256-9667.