A Cafecito Story

Café Alta Gracia
758 Sheep Farm Road, Weybridge, VT 05753
Internet: www.cafealtagracia.com
The coffee cooperative founded by Julia Alvarez and Bill Eichner to bring a specialty coffee directly from the farm in the Dominican Republic to the retail market in the United States. The mission is to spread grace through sustainability--environmental, social, economic, and educational.

Co-op America
1612 K Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20006
Telephone: (800) 58-GREEN (584-7336)
Internet: www.coopamerica.org
Co-op America educates the public about the social and environmental consequences of purchases and investments. Their publications and online services help concerned consumers and organizations locate socially responsible companies and investment options. Check Co-op America's "Green Pages" business directory for sources of fairly traded and organic goods.

The Fair Trade Federation
PO Box 698, Kirksville, MO 63501
Telephone: (660) 665-8962
Internet: www.fairtradefederation.org
The FTF is the national trade association of importers, wholesalers, and retailers involved in fair trade with artisans and farmers around the world.

Global Exchange
2017 Mission Street #303, San Francisco, CA 94110
Telephone: (415) 558-9486 x245
Internet: www.globalexchange.org/economy/coffee/
Global Exchange works to increase awareness of fair-trade issues and to translate that awareness into consumer activism in the marketplace.

Oxfam America
26 West Street, Boston, MA 02111
Telephone: (617) 728-2437
Internet: www.oxfamamerica.org/fairtrade/
Since 1970, Oxfam America has worked to create lasting solutions to hunger, poverty, and social injustice around the world. Inquire about their fair-trade coffee campaign.

Seattle Audubon Society
8050 35th Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98115
Telephone: (206) 523-8243 x13
Internet: www.seattleaudubon.org/coffee/
This local chapter of the Audubon Society coordinates the Northwest Shade Coffee Campaign to create awareness about the connection between coffee-growing practices and threatened populations of neotropical songbirds.

Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center
3000 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008
Telephone: (202) 673-4908
Internet: www.si.edu/smbc
This center at the Smithsonian Museum is a renowned source of information about research, educational programs, and publications concerning migratory birds. Visit their Web site to learn more about shade coffee-production practices.

The Songbird Foundation
2021 Third Ave, Seattle, WA 98121
Telephone/fax: (206) 374-3674
Email: info@songbird.org
Internet: www.songbird.org
Your coffee makes a world of difference. By drinking sustainable coffees--shade grown, organic and fairly traded--you help preserve songbird habitat, save the rainforest, provide livable wages to farmers, and much more.

Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA)
One World Trade Center, Suite 1200, Long Beach, CA 90831-1200
Telephone: (562) 624-4100
Internet: www.scaa.org
The authority on specialty coffee. The mission includes promoting excellence and sustainability through sensitivity to the environment and consciousness of social issues.

TransFair USA
52 Ninth Street, Oakland, CA 94607
Telephone: (510) 663-5260
Internet: www.transfairusa.org
TransFair USA is the certification organization for fair-trade food products in the United States, part of an international network of certifiers. You can get a list from them of retailers in your area that sell fair-trade coffee.

Vermont Institute of Natural Science (VINS)
27023 Church Hill Rd., Woodstock, VT 05091
Telephone: (802) 457-2779
Internet: www.vinsweb.org
A nonprofit organization devoted to environmental education and research. A center for the study of migratory songbirds, their projects include tracking the Bicknell's thrush from its summer habitat in the Green Mountains of Vermont to its winter home in the "Dominican Alps."

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Canadian Resources

Equiterre
2177, rue Masson, Bureau 317, Montreal, Quebec H2H 1B1 Canada
Telephone: (514) 522-2000
Internet: www.equiterre.qc.ca/english/coffee/
Equiterre is a Canadian nonprofit organization actively promoting certified fair-trade coffee in Quebec and other regions of Canada.

TransFair Canada
323 Chapel Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 7Z2 Canada
Telephone: (613) 563-3351
Internet: www.transfair.ca
TransFair Canada is the Canadian counterpart of TransFair USA. They can provide a list of retailers in your area that sell fair-trade coffee.

This fair-trade primer has been prepared by Jonathan Rosenthal, co-founder (retired) of Equal Exchange.
Equal Exchange
251 Revere Street, Canton, MA 02021 USA
Telephone: (781) 830-0303
Internet: www.equalexchange.com
Equal Exchange, a worker cooperative, was the first fair-trade coffee company in the United States and offers a full range of certified organic coffees and teas from small farmers' co-ops to caring people throughout North America. One hundred percent of Equal Exchange coffee is fairly traded.

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EQUAL EXCHANGE:
Building a new business model, One bean at a time

Close your eyes and picture of a new kind of business--a co-operative controlled by the people who do the work; a profitable business that chases dreams; a social change organization that maintains a profitable bottom line; a community of dedicated learners that holds honesty, mutual aid and respect as an integral part of that bottom line.

That's the dream that three idealistic young entrepreneurs created 15 years ago and called Equal Exchange. Since 1986, this new approach to business has turned dreams into reality for thousands of farmers and hundreds of thousands of coffee and tea drinkers across the United States and Canada. Today, the more than 40 workers of Equal Exchange are continuing to realize the dream by building honest partnerships--based on fair trade standards, efficient business practices and cooperative principles--between farmers and consumers.

The success of Equal Exchange and the fair trade movement has inspired commercial coffee companies to adopt this new model of business for small portions of their own coffee and tea businesses. We applaud these actions and invite our coffee and tea colleagues to join us in the one hundred percent club.

The worker owners of Equal Exchange proudly offer caring people like you a full range of delicious one hundred percent fairly traded gourmet coffee and tea direct from small-scale farmer co-ops in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

We invite you to join us as we work together to bring you a more satisfying cup.

Since importing our first coffee in 1986, we have expanded our work to include 17 trading partners in 10 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia and are now the largest fair trade certified coffee company in North America.

We purchase 100% of our coffees using internationally recognized fair trade standards that commit Equal Exchange to:

• Pay a Fair Price. A fair price includes a guaranteed minimum price regardless of how low the commodity market falls. This ensures farmers a living wage even when coffee market prices are too low to maintain acceptable living standards.
• Work with Democratically Run Cooperatives. Equal Exchange's partners are small farmer co-ops that are governed by the farmers themselves. They are dedicated to the equitable distribution of income and the provision of other services, such as healthcare and education.
• Buy Direct. Buying directly means that the benefits and profits from trade actually reach the farmers and their communities, not the middlemen with whom they are otherwise forced to work.
• Provide Advance Credit. Equal Exchange makes vital credit available to the farmers. Traditionally, this credit was either unavailable or only offered at exorbitant interest rates that kept farmers trapped in debt.
• Encourage Ecologically Sustainable Farming Practices. Sustainable farming helps build a long-term economic base for farmers while protecting their communities, the environment and consumers from dangerous chemicals.

These principles provide a framework that gives farmers more control and ensures that the economic benefits of the coffee trade reach the people who actually grow the beans, helping them to build a better future for themselves.

To find out more about how you can join us in our journey, please visit our web site at www.equalexchange.com.
Or contact us at: Equal Exchange
251 Revere Street, Canton, MA 02021 USA.
Telephone: (781) 830-0303.
Email us at: Info@equalexchange.com

EQUAL EXCHANGE'S MISSION
To build long-term trade partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relations between farmers and consumers and to demonstrate through our success the viability of worker-owned cooperatives and fair trade.

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