For Immediate Release: Thursday, January 29, 2004

Global Exchange's Fair Harvest volunteers have returned tired, sore and bug-bittenfrom their sojourn to Nicaragua. But the volunteers are extremely proud to have helped the Fair Trade farmers harvest this year's coffee from January 6 to 19. "It put a face on the farmers for me," said Matthew Bowlby of Minneapolis. "I got to understand first-hand the lives and struggles of the small coffee farmer—if only everyone could see the face of Fair Trade and its counterparts, they would never buy non Fair Trade coffee again!"

Twelve sturdy volunteers from all over the United States spent two weeks working the Fair Trade coffee harvest in Nicaragua's Yasika Sur region. The Fair Harvesters awoke at 6 am every morning and either picked coffee beans or washed, dried and sorted the harvest with the farming families hosting them. So why in the world would a group of young Americans choose to spend two weeks roughing it and harvesting coffee in Nicaragua?

In two words: Fair Trade. Fair Trade is a way for small scale farmers, buffeted and bankrupted by the depressed world price of coffee, to get a fair price for their products that allows them to get health care and education for their families. The world price of coffee hovers around 50 cents a pound, and the farmers can get as little as 10 cents a pound. But the Fair Trade price is $1.26 per pound, or $1.41 for Fair Trade and organic certified.

The volunteers joined the Nicaraguan communities of El Roblar and La Corona for the harvest. Both are members of the Organization of Northern Coffee Cooperatives (CECOCAFEN) which produces fruits, vegetables, some cocoa and, of course, coffee. The local farmers and CECOCAFEN are controlling their own destiny with local economic initiatives to promote organic production, enhanced quality control, better marketing and an effort to move away from export production into ecotourism.

The Fair Harvest program addresses two problems simultaneously. Volunteers help farmers harvest their crop and later spread the word in the United States about the importance of Fair Trade. "We must act to make a structural change in global trade," asserts Valerie Orth, the Fair Trade campaigner with Global Exchange who organized Fair Harvest. "The way to do that is to increase the involvement of consumers at all levels of the industry, as coffee drinkers and as newly awakened activists ready to fight for Fair Trade. Global Exchange's Fair Harvest is an innovative way to increase the demand for Fair Trade."

For more information about Fair Trade and Global Exchange please visit www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade. ###