Thanksgiving Coffee Company

I’m obsessed with numbers. I love them when they go up, and I snap into a rut when they fall below standard. Obama has widened his lead over McCain to 8 points. The Dow is down 369.88. The temperature in Fort Bragg, CA is 65 degrees. There are 75 more days until my favorite band comes to town. The average cost of a plane ticket from San Francisco to Uganda is $2,300. World Peace: Priceless.

I love numbers because they are concise while conveying a message. “Obama leads by 8” is a summary of what the next 8 year could be. “The Dow is down” equates to a global emotion of anxiety and fear, and hopefully summons change.

I was checking out the numbers for how many units of Mirembe we’ve sold so far this year (21,342), and thought, “Wow, 21,342 is pretty close to 25,000 and 25,000 is a pretty big positive even integer. I want to sell 25,000 units of Mirembe by the end of this month.” You see, I come up with these crazy ideas and sometimes I can pull them off by myself, and sometimes I need help. I am going to need your help to pull this one off.

In honor of Fair Trade Month, let’s sell the pants off Mirembe and kick some serious numerical butt (OK, images of depanting and kicking tush seem kind of violent, even if I am just talking about numbers. So sorry, let me try again). In honor of Fair Trade Month, let’s gather our allies and introduce strangers to the Mirembe project to disseminate JJ’s message of peace, boost the numbers, and prove to the world that Fair Trade is a sustainable practice. In honor of Fair Trade Month, let’s quench our thirst for tolerance, justice, and fantastic coffee. In honor of Fair Trade Month, I challenge you…

…To buy/sell 3,658 units of Mirembe to make this year’s sales be 25,000. It’s not impossible. It is a big leap. Buying Mirembe probably won’t affect the election, although it will help stimulate the economy. Hopefully it won’t affect the local temperate, or thwart the plans of my favorite band (Girlyman) coming to town. Your purchase will help send me to Uganda this winter to assess the needs of the farmers. World Peace: Priceless.

Who’s up for the challenge?

3,658 units this month = $5,889.38 to the farmers in Fair Trade Prices, plus $3,658 in rebates for a total of $9,547.38 to the farmers of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative in October.

Every afternoon I will update this blog with a sales report.
Date______Total This month___This year______Left to match challenge
October 6_____407___________21,342_____________3,658______
October 7_____501___________21,436_____________3,564______
October 8_____733___________21,668_____________3,332______
October 9__________ CLOSED FOR YOM KIPPOR________________
October 10____745___________21,680_____________3,320______
October 11 Weekend
October 12 Weekend
October 13 I will be out of the office. Will post when I return
October 14 I will be out of the office. Will post when I return

If 100 accounts each buy 36 units, our challenge is met! For every group that buys coffee this month, your name will be added to this list. For groups that order 36+, a link will be tagged to your name. Together, we can do this!! Thank you for supporting the Mirembe Kawomera project, Fair Trade Month, and my numerical obsession.

Adat Shalom
Community United Methodist Church
Friends of Ruwenzori
National Yiddish Book Center
Olympia Food Coop
Parkside UCC
St. Benedict’s Monastery
Temple Beth Hatfiloh
Unitarian Universalist Congregation
St. Mark’s United Methodist Church
Temple Beth El
Bnai Keshet

Exponential smiles,

Holly

PS Please remember to register to vote. You cannot vote unless you register, and for many states the deadline is this week!!!

Dear Friends,

Several people have asked to see a chart of sales and growth since the start of the project. I believe this information should be out there for all to see, for it is you and your hard work that sustains our work and the longevity of the farmers. We currently don’t have the ability to make this chart “live,” so I will update and repost it at least twice a month.

Thank you for your support. I keep saying this, but as you can now see: Every bag really does make a difference!!

Click on the chart to enlarge:
HOW FAR HAVE WE COME?
Good question!

In 2005, Thanksgiving Coffee Co. bought 1 container (37,500 pounds) of Mirembe Kawomera Coffee. From Aug - Dec of 2005, we sold 3,658 pounds.

During the second year, we bought 2 containers (75,000 pounds) of coffee, and sold 13,234 pounds.

In 2007, another 2 containers were bought, and 24,442 pounds were sold.

For this year, the farmers produced 3 containers (112,500 pounds) of coffee. From January 1st 2008 - October 10, 2008, 21,668 pounds have been sold as Mirembe Kawomera Coffee.

Interpreting the data: Four years ago we made a commitment to the farmers of Peace Kawomera that we would buy all the coffee that they could produce. We have lived up to our promise. You might be asking yourself, “What do they do with all the coffee that they don’t sell?” Well, we do sell it, just not as “Mirembe Kawomera.” The coffee gets blended into our Fair Trade / Organic mixtures, or sold as a house french or house light. The coffee is used, but the downside of having it used this way vs. sold as Mirembe is that the rebate that is in place through our profit-sharing program is only applied to the coffee that is sold as Delicious Peace. In other words, the $1 per package we donate to the Cooperative only applies to the coffee that is sold as Mirembe Kawomera “Delicious Peace” coffee. Just think how much more prosperous the Cooperative will be as we expand the market for Delicious Peace Coffee!

We have come a long way, but we still have a very long way to go. Please continue to buy Mirembe Kawomera Coffee. Every bag really does make a difference!

In Peace,

Holly

Calculate Your Impact, Understand Your Power

When you buy Mirembe Kawomera “Delicious Peace” Coffee, you raise money for peace and justice.

Each pound of “Delicious Peace” Coffee is bought at the Fair Trade price of $1.61, and raises another $1 per package through profit-sharing. To calculate your monthly impact, multiply the number of packages by $1.61, then add the quantity (number) of packages bought. The total is your financial impact.

By buying 1 package every month of the year, you raise $31.32 for the farmers who grow your coffee.

By buying 2 packages each month of the year, you double your impact, raising $62.64. If you enlist the support of 10 friends, and each buys 2 packages per month, you raise $626.40 over 12 months.

If you enlist the support of 20 members of your community, and each buys 2 packages per month, you raise $1,252.80 over 12 months.

If you enlist the support of 100 members of your community, and each person buys 2 packages per month, you raise $6,264 annually.

If your community mobilizes 500 people to commit to buying 2 packages each month, you raise $31,320 annually.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Alone, your contribution through buying two packages a month and raising $62.64 enables a farmer to buy 12 mosquito nets to protect 12 children from malaria-transmitting mosquitoes (each net costs $5).

By bringing 5 friends together, and raising $313.20 you would raise money for the school fees of 2 children, and also their books, for an entire year.

By mobilizing 100 members of your community, and raising $6,264, you could raise enough money for 2 families to build solid brick homes with metal roofs to keep dry during the rainy season.

By mobilizing your entire community of 500 people, and raising $31,320 you could raise money for 5 families to rebuild their homes, send 75 children to school, and buy 1,000 mosquito nets to protect 1,000 people from malaria.

Please contact us for further information about calculating your impact and how to define a goal for your campaign.

This weekend I receive a serious and legitimate inquiry via email. On our website, we describe Mirembe coffee as “A sweet, nutty coffee from Uganda with notes of pecan and nutmeg, and a lingering sensation of malty antiquity.” The question arose, “What suggestions do you have for a nut-free facility?”

No need to worry. The description of the coffee is more about taste and character, than an actual outline of ingredients. In the coffee world, we use certain words to describe the texture, taste, aroma, feeling, etc. of the sensation of the coffee experience. We talk about floral notes like jasmine, even though there really aren’t any flowers in the coffee. When we talk about acidity, we are really just talking about the tingly feeling that lingers on our tongues after we swallow. We mentioned notes of pecan and nutmeg because when we taste the coffee it brings us back to Thanksgiving time and on our pallets we can taste the subtleties that are associated with pecan pie.

There are no nuts in the coffee. There are undertones, which are less intense than notes, and notes are different than hints. Basically, it’s just coffee talk. The only thing in the Ugandan Mirembe Coffee, is coffee. It is not flavored with anything but love and hard work. Coffee tasting and descriptions are much like wine. If you read a wine label it might say hints of melon, or notes of cedar, when really all that’s in the bottle are fermented grapes.

Thanks for bearing with us. Although the coffee is nut-free, I make no claim that we aren’t a little nuts (it keeps things fun on this end).

Best,
Holly

Several months ago I received a call from Charles London, a freelance writer who discovered the Peace Kawomera Cooperative after doing some research on the Abayudaya (Jews of Uganda).

“Hello, my name is Charles and I’m interested in writing a story about the Peace Kawomera Cooperative for O Magazine.”

“O, as in Overstock? O, as in Oh? Or O as in Oprah?” I asked. I was in a bit of shock.

Chuckling on the other end, he replied, “Yes, O as in Oprah.”

Thus it started.

I first met Charles at Tufts University. He went to Tufts to celebrate with us as we received the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award. He also came to meet our February/March touring delegation, which included 4 farmers from the Peace Kawomera Cooperative. After spending some time together in Boston, Charles joined the farmers, Ben, and me on a bus as we traveled from Boston to NY. On the ride, he interviewed each of the farmers, Ben and me. We had a lot of fun as he got to know us, and we got to know him.

As we continued with the tour, Charles continued on to Uganda. He visited the members of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative, their farms and schools, and learned about the coffee project from the ground. He is a brilliant writer with a good heart.

The end result: a new friendship, and an article in August’s edition of O Magazine. Here is the link: http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200808_omag_coffee/1

Sales have been much slower than we hoped for, but many people have called in response to the article with an interest to get involved. Only time will tell, but with the arrival of the new crop just before the article hit, and our new website launched, good things are on our side.

If you read this, please forward it on. Let’s start a new campaign of telling everyone we know about this article and the courageous farmers of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative. Encourage your friends to buy a bag or two, and even look into starting a buying club in your community if you haven’t already done so. Together is the only way we can sustain the peace building efforts of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative.

All the best, and have a great weekend!

Holly

As I’ve written elsewhere on this blog, our work, and fair trade in general is about relationships. When it boils down to it, relationships are what hold this model together and what make it so powerful. Relationships shape this complicated and layered global economic exchange and mold it in the image of community, transform the blind, exploitative, and unsustainable relationships of times past and heal them.

So it’s a great joy to see those relationships deepening, like I have over the past week. Far away, in the east of Uganda, a delegation from the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston (Illinois) is visiting the Peace Kawomera Cooperative.

Our friend Rabbi Brant Rosen has been keeping an account on his blog, Shalom Rav.

Here’s an excerpt:

I’ve written extensively about Mirembe on this blog - largely because I have just been so inspired by the example they set for us. I truly believe that the folks at this modest coop in Uganda are, in their way, showing the rest of the world how to live.

(Brant’s posted a few more times on JRC’s visit to the cooperative, and also on their experience in Rwanda where they are involved with a number of truly inspiring projects…so please take a minute to read backwards and forwards from the link above!)

Also, another member of the JRC delegation, Hannah Gelder, is keeping a blog where she wrote about her experience with Peace Kawomera. Check it out here.

Thanks to our friends at JRC who have made this project such an important part of their community. You’d be hard pressed to find a cup of coffee at their synagogue that’s not fair trade from the farmers of the Peace Kawomera, or make it through a community event without running into someone (probably with the last name Waxman!) hawking packages for people to take home.

And if this sounds exciting, amazing, and fun…why don’t you get your community involved?

Yours in Peace,

Ben

To all our dear supporters & coffee lovers:

So happy to share the good news that after much wait and anticipation, the new crop Ugandan coffee has traversed the Atlantic Ocean, cleared customs, and arrived at our roastery in northern California! AND IT’S DELICIOUS!

The mood when the first of the year’s coffee arrives is kind of like the frenzy around the year’s first Beaujolais. People converge in the tasting room, our head roaster Charles tries to settle everyone down so he can pay attention to the 100 gram sample he’s roasting to perfection, and we all bump into each other waiting for the first cup to brew. It’s inevitably been a long wait, with at least one or two snags in the road, some anxiety, and a good amount of anticipation.

This year’s coffee is the best we’ve had from the Peace Kawomera Cooperative. It’s character (some combination of nutty richness and a strong vanilla and spice note) is enhanced. The light roast is sweet, and almost chocolaty. The dark roast is strong, with a little bit of a smoky punch, and a sweet finish. Hats off to the farmers, who continue to refine their production and quality control mechanism. Quality is the goal of our work, and we’ve put a lot of time in on the ground in Uganda tinkering with fermentation times, drying techniques, sorting, and cupping. See my post from 2006 for more on that story.

We’ve got a little bit more news—the introduction of a re-designed package. We thought we’d wait for the new coffee to introduce it’s new clothes, so here it is:

Director of National Sales and Organizing Holly Moskowitz with a sack of the new coffee, and a package from our first production run.

Yours in Peace (and with some great coffee!)

Ben

Our friends at TWIN Trading (UK) just passed me a link to a recent article from London’s “The Observer”. In it, journalist Andrew Purvis explores the history of the Gumutindo Cooperative Union (of which Peace Kawomera is one of ten member-cooperatives), and the story of coffee in Uganda in general. It’s a great read, and illuminates a lot of the history of where Peace Kawomera came from, and the farmer-led movement transforming Uganda’s coffee trade.

“Yet, ironically, these people - deprived of everything - had one resource that the whole world wanted: coffee, grown at high altitude on the fertile slopes of Mount Elgon, which was virtually indistinguishable from its famous Kenyan counterpart. Unable to export their beans legally, farmers traded them on the black market - and Kenya, a two-day trek from the Konokoyi valley where I am standing now, was their conduit to the coffee-drinking world.”

Read the entire article.

Also, check out Mr. Purvis’ blog for his thoughts on the real reasons why fair trade matters.

Here’s to the farmers, whose remarkable story continues to inspire me, and hopefully you too!

In Peace,

Ben

There’s been a lot of attention recently to the international food crisis. Suddenly, it seems, we’re recognizing that even after decades of work on the issue, the most fundamental human right is still out of reach for hundreds of millions of people around the world. It’s becoming apparent that the consequences of climate change and population growth are creating some very difficult problems, and that these combine with a host of other political, economic, and ecological challenges to create complex and urgent crisis: people are hungry, and food security for a significant number of the world’s population is a long way off. In the last couple of days, a lot of attention has been put on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) gathering in Rome. Much of the attention has been on a variety of side issues, including the extravagant menu offered to the government officials and dignitaries gathered, and on the continued abuse of power by Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president (if that’s a word I can use to describe his role, which is clearly that of a dictator).

Rising food costs directly effect the farmers of the Peace Kawomera Cooperative. Though most grow a significant portion of their own food on their farms (along with their coffee), many buy some percentage of their food, especially grains (either wheat bread or rice) in town. Rising costs make it difficult for the farmers to feed their families, and spread their earnings from coffee all too thin. Underneath this challenge though, is a situation many decades in the making: for years, coffee has been the only lucrative crop, so farmers have invested in coffee, and moved away from growing food. But though their incomes have increased, their ability to provide for their family with the extra money their earning is starting to decline. It’s been two steps forward, and now a step backward.

How did this happen?

We could spend a lot of time pointing fingers, and the truth is that there are more guilty parties than we can count. Failed UN efforts, corruption, war, climate change, and the collapse of stable markets are just a few of the leading suspects. What’s clear is that prioritizing the needs of farmers and their families has long since lost traction in the world’s circles of power. Large-scale solutions such as liberalizing government policy (ie privatizing and reducing trade barriers) have exposed farmers to the hardest-hitting competition in the world, and as one would expect, the big guys win pretty quickly. A Ugandan farmer trying to make a profit on her surplus corn is in a bad way when she is selling to a market that’s controlled by giant American multinationals, and supplied by giant industrialized farms in the US cornbelt that are heavily subsidized by American tax dollars. So, for farmers like the 754 members of Peace Kawomera, the last 20 years have seen a decline in crop prices, which means three things: one, it’s harder to make a living growing food, two, it’s cheaper to buy food, it makes more sense to grow cash crops like coffee, which don’t face competition from subsidized production elsewhere.

This, for many economists, is a good thing. Specialization (those who grow corn best grow corn, those who don’t shouldn’t) should calibrate the economy towards efficiency. Farmers in Uganda should grow coffee, and sell it to farmers in Iowa who grow corn, and visa-versa. Farmers took this philosophical and economic bait and ate it too (who wouldn’t, it’s a rational choice considering the options—work to grow crops to sell and then make very little money, or give up those crops and buy food at the new cheap prices). As food got cheaper, farmers started to grow less, and buy more. But then things changed. Food prices have skyrocketed, and now, farmers are faced with food prices that are beyond their means.

The UN’s recent call to action is a dramatic attempt to stave off disaster. In the short term, it may be necessary, but it’s not a long-term solution to the deepening problem, which is only exacerbated by population growth, climate change, and economic tremors caused by the challenge of peak oil.

It’s worth rewinding a few weeks in the news, to the attempted passage of the US Farm Bill.The Economist weighed in on the absurdity of some of the Farm Bill’s most notorious features (not only continuing a lavish subsidy program, but tying future subsidy levels to today’s record commodity prices), and others, like The Center for Ecoliteracy, have worked to draw the connection between the bill, farming, health, and the impact on our local food systems. What’s important to note here though, is that the farm bill is at the root of the hunger crisis now facing farmers around the world. In the US especially, but also in Europe, farm subsidies support the business of farming locally, but prop up an unsustainable commodity production, dramatically distort prices, and create a surplus of really cheap food. This food then travels the world, and finds its way untaxed into local markets, where it arrives at low prices, often undercutting the ability of local farmers to compete and make a profit. This is an important piece of the puzzle: the reduction of trade barriers in the third world and increased subsidies in the first world flood local markets and combine to dramatically alter the economy of farming and the social web of food production.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the paradigm itself is unsustainable. It’s not going to work to overproduce food, and ship it from one side of the world to the other. For a while, that seemed logical, at least on some economic grounds. But now, the cost of that model has increased to the point where it’s clearly broken. Farmers are stuck in the midst of a situation that they did not create, and struggling to get by. It’s past time to envision and work towards a different paradigm, one that prioritizes the needs of farmers and their families, and understands that this is the only basis from which to build a strong and sustainable global economy. Henry Saragih, International Coordinator for Via Campesina, has written a subtle but provocative letter that hints at what this new direction might look like.

In the meantime, the farmers of Peace Kawomera are working to build a stable market for their coffee, which helps to bring some economic security to their families. The Cooperative is working on helping the farmers develop their coffee production, and balance cash-cropping with food production. It’s going to be a long journey together, but our hope is that by doing our part we can work to establish a model that works for farmers and their families—both because coffee, which is and should be a viable cash crop is now profitable, and because farmers can use these earnings and the cooperative’s support to return to food production, and achieve a healthy balance in their farming between feeding their families and earning money to pay for the other necessities of life.

From the UN summit in Rome to the floor of the US congress, and all the way to the slopes of Mt. Elgon in Uganda, the challenge of our time is weaving together a globalized economy that works for everyone, now, and in the future. Should we be surprised to learn that it’s all connected, that just like an ecosystem, one change creates another, and a challenge one place is simultaneously a challenge somewhere else?

From time to time (and increasingly, with less time between—a good thing!) like-minded blogs, bloggers, and organizations share our story with their audience. It’s certainly one of the wonders of our modern world: that we can reach so many with the stories of our time. I thought I’d share a couple of recent posts with you, in case you’re interested in reading what others are saying about our work—maybe you’ll discover a new favorite blog or another inspiring story in the process!

From Tzaadi.com, an interesting perspective on Mirembe Kawomera and the larger struggles facing Africa, and Africans.

A snippet: “We should be looking to stories of self-reliance and ingenuity that show how Africans themselves are healing their continent from the inside out. Read more.

From Your Daily Thread, an LA-based blog about all things fair trade, hip, and sustainable.

A snippet: “Thanksgiving brings to mind turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce – and coffee? Sure, Thanksgiving is still far away – and maybe coffee isn’t a traditional Thanksgiving food – but we are definitely ready to give thanks for California-based Thanksgiving Coffee. Read more.

From Faith House, an innovative approach to building interfaith bridges and relationships, based in Manhattan.

A snippet: “We invite you to join efforts like this and harness the buying power of your community for peace and justice, and to heal the broken relationships of our world.” Read more.

Yours in Peace,

Ben