Each year, Oxfam estimates that more than 500,000 people are killed due to armed violence with countless more left devastated, displaced, traumatized, and angry.  Armed violence destroys lives, drains government resources, undermines development efforts, and fosters a culture of violence, fear, and corruption. It is big business with huge ramifications. 
   
At the moment, there is no global arms trade treaty regulating the transfer of arms. Too often, cheap yet highly destructive weapons land in the hands of those who use them to assert power insidiously and further continue a vicious cycle of violence. For developing countries, particularly those in conflict or post-conflict situations, the low-cost accessibility of weapons wreaks havoc on efforts to achieve reconciliation and development. While decades of tensions slowly settle, an arsenal of cheap, available weapons remains—stunting efforts to move forward peacefully.  Families are left displaced and devastated by the loss or injury of a family member; their home may be destroyed or no longer safe to live in, and they may be left virtually income-less with no able-bodied workers or farmland. Already struggling health care systems are overburdened; schools are forced to closed or get by with meager support; access to food becomes limited. Anger, hopelessness, and fear grow. Any tensions that may arise or continue in communities—ethnic or religious conflicts, neighbor or land disputes—are resolved through violence. And when you are angry and disempowered with no job or education opportunities—no potentials to grow or support your family, when an AK-47 or grenade is as cheap and accessible as a pint of beer, as is the case in Burundi, it is easy to see how violence remains the preferred medium for conflict resolution. Violence infiltrates every aspect of the culture; it becomes a daily part of life.
   
“Weapons call out to other weapons,” says Teddy Mazina, a journalist in the documentary film Bang for your Buck. The huge supply of cheap weapons leftover from Burundi’s civil war has contaminated his country, he says, causing an intractable cycle of violence and corrupt power that undermines all development efforts. Underlying issues such as why violence is so easily resorted to are obscured by the sheer supply and availability of cheap grenades and Ak-47s. There needs to be regulation: a path towards disarmament.
   
Bang for Your Buck beautifully illustrates this need. As winner of Oxfam’s "Shooting Poverty” contest, the film was made to galvanize the Control Arms Campaign, a global civil society alliance, of which Oxfam is a part of, calling for a universal Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) would outline universal standards for arms exporters and importers, eradicating any loopholes or variance in regulation that could be used to evade responsibility and further fuel armed conflict, poverty, and human rights violations. The Campaign calls on members of the United Nations to secure this urgent treaty—one round of negotiation is underway this week in New York with the final conference scheduled for July 2010.  You can join the campaign and help ensure the government takes this opportunity to comprehensively regulate the deadly weapons trade.
   
A universal Arms Trade Treaty is an important step towards ending irresponsible arms transfers that promote corrupt agendas and violate human rights, drain resources, and hinder development efforts in countries striving to rebuild, particularly in the aftermath of civil war. Much more needs to be done, however, in order to start over. To learn more about the struggle for new beginnings check out ViewChange.org’s new episode, Starting Over, where Bang for Your Buck is featured along with two other powerful films. In the episode you will meet Teddy Mazina as he walks you through the realities of daily grenade attacks in Burundi, learn about Rwanda’s Gacaca justice tribunals, and witness one ex-patriot’s dream to promote economic development through tourism in Sierra Leone. 

Starting Over airs on Direct TV Channel 375 and DISH Network Channel 9410 on:

Friday, July 15th 4 pm PST
Sunday, July 17th 12am PST
Tuesday, July 19th 8pm PST
Wednesday, July 20th 3am and 10am PST
Friday, July 22nd  5am PST
Saturday, July 23rd 11:30pm PST.

And can also be viewed online at LinkTV.org.

During my recent visit to Oro Verde Cooperative in Amazonian Peru, I stayed with a number of indigenous farmers who are supplying us with an incredible cocoa. It is incredible for its taste – last month our farmers took first and third place in the World Chocolate Competition in Paris!- but it is equally as incredible for the story behind the cocoa. These brave farmers have been growing cocoa beans as a replacement for the coca they have grown in the past to feed the deadly narco-traffic in cocaine.

We were the first company to import coffee from their village called Akan Shamboyaco (it was Alto Shamboyaco until my visit, when the people decided to reclaim the full name of their village from the Spanish Alto, meaning “high”). We are also the first and only company to import their sugar, paying the villagers ten times the amount they get on the local market. Yet it is the cocoa that has the most profound impact on the villagers’ lives.

Coca is an essential part of indigenous spirituality and the daily work life of many of the indigenous groups along the Peruvian Amazon and highlands. It provides energy for working at high altitudes and essential amino acids and vitamins not readily available in local foods. No problem there. But for the last two decades outsiders have come in and morphed the benign coca plant into the essential ingredient in cocaine production. In fact, by the end of the 1990’s this area accounted for more than a quarter of all cocaine production in Peru. The farmers received good money for the coca leaves that grow so easily here, but the price many paid was higher than the income gained. Farmers were harassed by Peruvian military and often arrested and jailed. Brutal narco dealers often forced farmers to grow more and more coca, kidnapping children (especially boys) to insure compliance and to gain “recruits” for the narco battles and allied extremist movements like the Shining Path, which was largely funded by cocaine. Drug dealers also set up cocaine processing sites throughout the jungles around Akan Shamboyaco and the many rivers in the Amazon basin at the foot of the area. The processing involved many hazardous chemicals, which were left to flow into water sources, poisoning fish and making water undrinkable.

“It was a bad trade for us”, said Belmar sadly.  Belmar is a traditional leader in the village, although only in his late twenties.  We sat around a lantern at his house one night, hearing stories of political and social struggle of the people here. But Belmar brightened when he spoke of the economics of cocoa and coffee these days. “We still have a lot of problems in our community, but the money from the cocoa and the coffee is much better.  We don’t have to worry about the coca problems anymore.”

Oro Verde has done an amazing job in organizing so many isolated villages into a powerful and successful cooperative. But helping the villagers of Akan Shamboyaco to increase their income and gain independence from the cocaine trade may be the sweetest victory yet.

NPR's Morning Edition did a major piece this morning about how the structure of publicly held companies prevents them from doing good in the world. The premise was the directors and officers of these companies have a legal duty to maximize shareholder profit, and therefore could be sued if they did things that impacted the profit, even if done for social good. As an ex-Wall Street corporate lawyer, I can tell you that this is utter nonsense. It reflects a lack of imagination on the part of the directors and officers (and their legal advisors) and replaces their real legal duty with the profit-oriented economic theory that has gripped our country since the late 1980s.

The truth is, officers and directors are legally required to maximize shareholder VALUE, not shareholder profit. That is or can be a very different proposition. "Value" is what the company defines it as. Profit is only part of the value equation, but there is no legal, ethical or moral requirement that it is the only definition of value. So if the highest value of a company is to serve the common good and be profitable (which we at Dean's Beans, among others, have proven is possible for almost twenty years), then when shareholders invest in that company, they will know what they are getting into. There is no shortage of investors looking to put their money where their greater values are, as proven by the billions consciously placed in socially responsible investments in the last decade.

What is required is not a new form of corporation. Rather, social entrepreneurs creating their new businesses for the common good simply have to write their foundation documents (the Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation) to enshrine their social mission into the very bones of their new company. They need to state clearly what the values of the company are that they are seeking to maximize. Thus it is a lack of imagination on the part of the company's lawyers and advisors, not a lack of legal possibility, that prevents new public companies from being organized for the common good, as they define it.

I will be happy to give free advice on this subject to any social entrepreneur who wants to insure that their new company can pursue its social mission without the fear of being sued by shareholders for not putting profit above everything else.

One of the most satisfying aspects of my work is sitting down with farm families and trying to solve a problem creatively. During my last visit to Peru, we were having a discussion with CODEMU (the Women’s Development Council) on how to insure effective participation of the women in the Oro Verde coop’s decision making. Everybody who sells Fair Trade coffee puts gender equity, etc. in their literature, but there are lots of nitty gritty reasons why women don’t fully participate, even though Fair Trade rules require it. One reason is that most of the women have kids, and as every working mom (and dad!) who is reading this knows, it is impossible to participate in a meeting when you’ve got an infant in need of a change or a two and three year old falling down, spilling a drink or crying at the injustice of the sharing impaired. (I remember once when I was a lawyer/stay at home dad I had a three way international call going on while I tried to change Sarah’s diaper- okay, just the tip of the iceberg!).

We came up with the idea of creating a day care program during assemblies, committee meetings and other gatherings of the coop. Now this may seem pretty straightforward up here, but it is not common at all in rural coffee village settings. According to Melba, the head of CODEMU, the social expectation there is that a woman will take care of the kids while doing everything else at the same time, even if it means not being able to stay in a meeting or stay focused. As a result, women are rarely effective participants in these meetings, which determine the nuts and bolts policies and practices that control their economic lives.

We co-created and funded a program to bring in day care providers, toys and a safe space for young children at the Oro Verde headquarters in Lamas. After six months, we found that it was helpful but not great – the women were having trouble finding skilled caretakers who were available for short gigs. As we analyzed the problem, it became clear that the issue was that the coop was only looking for degree-holding social workers or psychologists for daycare, as there is a knee-jerk reaction in many Latin American communities for degrees, hierarchy and licenses.  I suggested getting a list of responsible sixteen and seventeen year olds who could provide short- term oversight and care and who would love to make the money (read: slightly older babysitters!). Although this was a new concept in this rural area, Melba and the women of CODEMU thought it might work. The big annual meeting is coming up in April, so we will see how it works.

Small steps, shared ideas, a little help from your friends. That is how we build community around the coffee world.

Every time I visit a coffee village I hear the same question: why is the price of coffee to us farmers so low? Why is there no relation between the costs of production and a reasonable (if any) profit and the price we get for our beans? These questions apply to 99% of the coffee in the world, fortunately not ours. But here is the answer, from my perch atop a waterfall in northern Peru:

In New York City, half an earth away  from the coffeelands, a room full of overcaffeinated young men (who’d probably never heard of Yirgacheffe or Atsabe) are shouting themselves hoarse bidding down the lifeblood of rural coffee farmers. In the middle of this room is the circular trading floor of the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT), known to its denizens as “The Ring.” Here, investment houses, banks, financial speculators and large coffee companies bid on the future price of coffee. For the companies, the goal is to insure a future supply at a known price – a necessary planning tool for a business based on an agricultural commodity. But for the rest of the frenzied traders the point is to make a profit on the “float” between what they pay for coffee futures and what they hope to sell them for later. For two centuries, coffee had been a dull commodity, traded on a somnambulant market. Yet somewhere in the last decade, it had morphed from a morning brew into a raging speculative commodity on the trading floor.

In this wired world, these Lords of the Ring are supplied with up-to-the-minute financial, political, meteorological and other data from an army of consultants. An early frost in Brazil? The flowers necessary for the budding coffee fruit to develop could wither and die, shrinking the coming harvest. Supply down, price up; bid two cents more for March deliveries. A rumored peace deal in Colombia? Easier deliveries in three months; hold off and let the price drop. The rumors and intelligence are translated into Buy and Sell orders, little slips of paper carried across the floor by the Runners, the traders-in-training. Their street clothes covered in tunics carrying the colors of their houses, the Runners grab the slips from the phone and computer banks owned by the Lords and race them down to their warriors in the Ring, who scream out their offers to buy for a penny more or sell for a penny less. These players make the prices rise and fall in an incestuous system unrelated to the true cost of growing and processing the crop, and with no consideration at all for the needs of the growers to feed their families and keep their kids in school. As one trader told me:

“Traders are not guys with moral fiber when it comes to the conditions of the farmer’s lives. We’re seeing money and we’re making money."

It always amazes (and angers) me that when the market price determined by the Lords of the Ring goes up, roasters and retailers are quick to raise their prices to the consumer. “We have to charge the replacement value of the coffee” one broker told me. But when the world prices go down, these same brokers and buyers never drop their prices.

To me, Fair Trade is not just a formula to keep the price at a level sufficient for the farmers to rely on to improve their lives, it is a deeper commitment to social change that challenges the basic assumptions about the market and the human relations that lie beneath the surface.

While I sat above that waterfall, the market price dropped below 60 cents per pound - the price it costs a farmer to grow and harvest the coffee. From that day forward, each pound produced would drive the farmer who grew it deeper into debt and bewildered despair. For half a decade to come, farm families would suffer malnutrition and infant mortality would soar. At the same time, corporate profits were about to rise to historic heights, as the Lords of the Ring made their killing.

(Dean is currently in the field in Peru. Stay tuned for a new blog upon his return. In the meantime, here is Dean's Beans' 2009 Year in Review and a sneak peak of what's in store for the year to come...)

We don’t have to tell you how rough 2009 was. All of us had to struggle with a decimated economy, lost jobs and demolished savings, a polarized political system and a swine flu epidemic. Whether it was people’s desire to brew coffee at home instead of paying a tuition’s worth for a cup at those chain stores, or folks looking for a company that reflected their values and they trusted, we actually grew in 2009. In recognition of our good fortune, we gave away over a thousand pounds of coffee to folks who you told us were having a rough time due to the economy and otherwise. We committed to supplying all the coffee needed all year long to the overburdened Amherst Survival Center. We even got our coffee back from those Somali pirates.

At home we started a new program with Somali refugee women in Massachusetts to create an economic base for them. Our reusable grocery tote project was so successful that we had to suspend it after a week. We will be back on it as soon as “the ladies” (as they call themselves) crank out more bags made from the burlap bags our coffee arrives in. After twenty years of false starts, this is the first successful economic development program in this community. Congratulations, Walaalo Sisters!

Internationally, we kept our promises and our programs with our farmer partners. This was not easy. The dollar fell to record lows internationally, which actually forced up the price of coffee. In most of the coffee world that didn’t mean more money to farmers, only to the exporters. But for us it meant more money for the farmers themselves and no passing it on to the consumer. That’s how we do business regardless of convenience or cost.

Here is an update on some of our People-Centered Development work in the coffee lands:

• Peru – We are working hard with both our partners in Peru, Pangoa and Oro Verde. In Pangoa, our Restoring the Sacred project keeps growing, having reforested with local trees and local knowledge a large part of the deforested sacred lands of the Ashaninkas peoples. Our Women’s Loan Fund continues to offer the only credit available to coop women, and our latrine program (with our logo on the doors! Talk about off the wall marketing!) continues to, uhh, blossom. Additionally, we have supported the travels of General Manager Esperanza Castillo to international events so that she can tell the story of women in coffee to the world. Powerful stuff.

• Colombia – In Colombia we have dedicated our program to supporting indigenous self-determination and the maintenance of sacred knowledge.  We have helped start a land re-purchase program that brings communal land back into the fold after years of government programs that saw the land base shrink. We are also supporting a new initiative to bring Elders of the four tribes of the Sierra Nevada together to walk the sacred spots around their mountains (the “Heart of the World”) and teach the knowledge to the next generation. Additionally, through the Coffeelands Landmine Victims Trust, we are supporting meaningful job training for coffee farmers disabled by explosives in the on-going violence in this country.

• Guatemala – We continue to support the great programs of APROS, the women’s health collective on Lake Atitlan, including new programs with the women’s teen daughters. This is the first girls-training-girls program in Central America and is powerful and successful in self-esteem building and small scale income generation for scholarships.

• Nicaragua – Our work with Prodecoop continues as it has for sixteen years. Last year we worked on the design and funding of a farmer-owned café/roasterie, modeled on our successful project in Leon, Nicaragua that supports land mine victims. We also sent volunteers down to assess educational needs, which we will continue to do this year as we evolve a new program for needs assessment on the farm level and how best we can participate.

• Kenya – We keep struggling against corruption and inefficiency in the government to help farmer coops get fair trade and organic certification. We established an organic demonstration plot in Embu so that the farmers could see the real results of going organic. We held a training in Fair Trade and organic techniques that drew a roomful of farmers representing ten thousand coop members. We are designing an Internal Control System with Rianjagi Coop to help it become the first Kenyan coop to get organic certification. At the same time, change comes very slowly in Kenya.

• Rwanda – Our groundbreaking Men Overcoming Gender Violence trainings last year were so successful that the UN funded some of the farmers who had received the training to go share their work with other cooperatives in Rwanda. This is a groundswell of work in a land so torn by gender violence. We have also begun a weaving project with women genocide survivors at COOPAC cooperative, starting with coffee canister sized baskets with “Dean’s Beans” woven into them! Available soon!

• Ethiopia – This year we brought water directly to the new school in Negele Gorbitu. We also paid the salary of the new teacher at the school (three times the salary of the government supplied teacher, but three times the quality as well!). We are still in the planning stages of a farmer owned and operated well drilling company.

• East Timor – Working both with and against the system in East Timor, we managed to create the first direct relationship in the coffee industry with a village level farm coop, in Atsabe, Ermera District. This has allowed us to be able to put our profit share and development assistance directly into the farmers’ hands and assure accountability and impact. Our first project was to supply 200 fair trade soccer balls to the President’s Youth Anti-Violence Initiative, giving young Timorese their first insight into progressive business and hope. We are working to establish a recording studio for young Timorese musicians and a farmer owned and operated café/roasterie. We hope our example will lead other companies to buy directly from farmers in East Timor.

• Papua New Guinea – This is one distant and difficult place to work! We continue to provide organic certification and training to farmers we buy from, as well as to fund the microloan program.

Some of our really exciting new programs for 2010 include:

• The creation of a Bulletin Board, where farmers post their needs (“experienced electrician”, “English teacher”, “computer help”, etc.) and our customers (that’s you!) step up and volunteer to help out. Still working out the many bugs in this one but it will be the best thing we’ve ever done!
• Dean’s Constitutional Convention – help us design the progressive company of the future! (I ain’t getting any younger!). No progressive founder has ever left a company that really sticks to its ideals. Can we?
• Coops Supporting Coops – We are putting together a program where our cooperative customers can choose which projects they’d like to support from their purchases. It will be a great way for coops here to connect directly with coops there.

We’ll keep providing great coffee at reasonable prices, great opportunity for the farmers and increased opportunity for you to participate in making the world a better place. Really.

I often hear comments by café owners or some of the less enlightened in the coffee business such as, “aren’t all coffees organic?” or “we only buy organic coffee --the broker told me that the farmers don’t use pesticides”. Unfortunately, neither of these comments is true, and I thought it was about time to state the case for certified organics right here.

First of all, it is important for folks to realize that coffee is the second most heavily pesticided crop in the world after cotton. Period. The top ten chemicals used on coffee are either banned for use in the USA or strictly limited and heavily regulated. Twenty years ago, many of us young (-er) eco-activists tried to stop the export to the developing world of chemicals that were not allowed to be used in the USA. The ethical reasoning was clear enough, if we aren’t allowed to put them on our workers and in our environment, why should we dump them in less tightly regulated environments? Also, since most of these chemicals were used on food that would be exported to us, shouldn’t we stop this exporting Circle of Poison? Good luck, we couldn’t overcome the agricultural lobby then or now on this one. Some of the chemicals used in coffee are DDT, malathion, parathion, dieldrin, endrin, roundup and paraquat. Does that leave a good taste in your mouth?

Add to the inherent dangers in these chemicals the problem that most farmers who use them can’t read the warning labels in English, German and Spanish and a real problem ensues. The majority of farmers in the world are indigenous peoples who may not read or write the languages on the warning labels. Even in Latin America I usually work with farmers who can’t read Spanish, and the warnings aren’t printed in Quiche, Mam, Tzutujil or other indigenous languages. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen children or adults throwing handfuls of white chemicals over plants without using any protective gear or applicators, or even knowing what the chemical was.

It is essential for consumers to understand that “certified organic” is more than just farmers not using pesticides. In order to become certified, farmers must undertake a three year chemical free period, complemented by training in erosion control water protection, mulching and composting of plant wastes and a lot more. A very stringent, transparent system of internal controls must be adopted and followed to monitor adherence to the organic program. Certified organic farms make a strong commitment to the earth and her inhabitants that is far beyond that of the ordinary farmer.

It is often difficult for consumers to read past the marketing hype of major companies and organizations that would like the commercial benefit of organics without paying the farmer more or making a real commitment. I am sorry to say that Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade share this lack of commitment. Neither major label requires certified organic status from its growers, but both make all sorts of earth friendly claims about their products. Many people associate Fair Trade with organic, because historically most Fair Trade cooperatives were also certified organic.  However, as Fair trade has, ahem, broadened its reach to embrace large multinational players in the coffee, banana, and other markets, that equation can no longer be assumed. For example, Starbucks only Fair Trade coffee, “Estima”, is not certified organic (which also means Starbucks doesn’t have to pay the twenty cent organic premium to the farmers!). Interestingly, neither of the two (that’s it??) organic Starbucks coffee are Fair Trade (so they don’t pay the Fair Trade premium on these!)! I have heard that where once 85% of all Fair Trade certified coffees were also organic, the figure is now down to about 65%. That’s certainly better than Rainforest Alliance, which has a strong environmental program but has no requirement for organics either.

We are 100% certified organic because we believe in the value of organics to the earth, the farmers and their ecologies and to the consumers, as well. Coffee people who make claims that their products are organic but are not certified are either blowing smoke or are truly ignorant of what this issue is all about.

Most people think that Fair Trade is just about a minimum price guaranteed to the farmers. That is a critical piece of the system, but Fair Trade provides many powerful tools for social change – something that no other label or system offers. One of the most significant is the requirement that farmers organize into democratic and transparent cooperatives.

In order to understand what this is about, it is necessary to appreciate why Fair Trade was founded in the first place. In the coffee world, the vast majority of farmers are small scale and indigenous. That means they have little access to information about prices, how the market operates, the needs of northern buyers, access to credit and more. They may not even speak their own national language, but rather their indigenous language. Therefore, they need middlemen to either provide the services for them or buy their coffee outright as cherries picked earlier that day. Since most are physically far removed from the major population or processing centers, they also have to rely on middlemen to get their coffee out of the mountains and into the stream of commerce. As you can see, they are not effective participants in the world market (even though economic models assume that they are), and are at a terrible disadvantage in trying to get a good price for their products.

By organizing into cooperatives, the farmers have the joint buying power to get better prices for farm inputs, they have joint processing power and a greater ability to get information about current prices and market conditions. They get to vote and have a real say (often for the first time in their lives) on the things that impact their families’ health and well-being. The requirement of transparency means that for the first time in their lives they know what they are getting, how much goes into the coop’s coffers, how much everyone else is getting and they can see the impact of the cooperative on their personal and joint bottom lines. Further, the coops provide valuable and often nonexistent social services, such as loans and health care (or at least money to obtain care).

Fair trade coops often pool their premiums together to have a powerful joint impact on their communities. This may take the form of building wells and schools (and believe me, most farming communities are in desperate need of both!) such as we have seen and participated in in Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Peru and elsewhere. Often, it takes the form of purchasing and building upstream capacity – that’s biz talk for buying the plants that process, grade, package and export their beans, thereby keeping that entire income stream in the local community, not giving it away to layers of middlemen. In Ethiopia, our Oromia partners have even created a national bank that takes deposits from non-members, makes low cost loans to members and has creatively diversified the income of the coop.

These are the unique, important and largely unknown benefits of cooperation in the coffeelands, and tens of thousands of farming families have gained better lives as a result. These are the reasons why we have focused on cooperatives and will continue to do so.

Fair Trade is much more than just an economic formula guaranteeing the farmers more money than conventional coffee sales. One of the most exciting aspects of the movement to me is the impact Fair Trade has on women throughout the developing world. Within Fair Trade cooperatives, gender equity is required. That generally means that women have to be represented on the Board of Directors and on other governing bodies, and of course, they can vote and their votes are equal. I am not naïve, however, and I know that in many of the societies where coffee grows women’s empowerment is still a goal and is resisted subtly and sometimes overtly by the ruling men. At the same time, I have seen powerful indications of change. Five of the fourteen coops we work with around the world are managed by women. And those women use their power not only to improve the lives, social standing and self-esteem of women in their own coops, but each of them reaches out and mentors women in other coops. An awesome model for all of us.

We take voting for granted, and many of us don’t even bother to vote in primaries or in general elections. For women (and men) who have never had the opportunity to participate in decisions that effect and control their economic and political lives, voting is a powerful act. I have seen enormous changes in women over the years as they participate and have their voices heard in their communities and on the world stage. One example, Esperanza Castillo from Pangoa Cooperative in Peru. When we first met in 2003, she was a shy and quiet manager of a small coop (about two hundred families). Over the years, Esperanza has developed into an internationally recognized voice for women and Fair Trade. At one event she got a standing ovation when the next speaker (Hilary Clinton) got warm applause. In Ethiopia, Nekempte has gone from an “office girl” when we first met in 2000, to the number three in command of Oromia Cooperative, which has over 100,000 members! 

The point here is not that all of the problems of women’s empowerment have been solved by Fair Trade. Rather, the movement opens an oasis of opportunity to women in rural societies where there are not that many other institutional openings. That is the true evolution of change beneath the surface of a cup of Fair Trade coffee.

(Read Part 1 of Dean's trip to Kenya)

Later in the week was the launch of a new NGO, Fair Trade Organization of Kenya (FTOK).  Forty farmers representing ten thousand farm families came together for the celebration and a full-day workshop on fair trade and organics, presented by John and I, along with FTOK founder Sophie Mukua and President, Samwel Okwenda.  There were also representatives of Thika Mills (mills are traditionally the last bad guy in the farmer rip-off equation), which is now certified to process fair trade coffees (hmm, we’ll see), and Robert Thuo of the African Wildlife Foundation, which is saving elephants and helping farmers with a grant from USAID and Starbucks (it is great work, but I had to ask, wouldn’t it be betmter if Starbucks simply paid the farmers more for their coffee? Then they could put up their own fences and feed their families directly-what a concept!).

The farmer coops in attendance introduced themselves, and talked about the low price of coffee they receive and the terrible effects of the drought. They talked about how difficult it was to find direct buyers; even though they were allowed to do so by law, they didn’t know how.  John gave a wonderfully detailed description of the organic farming system.  Most of these farmers were raised on government information that was hopelessly out of date and more appropriate for large plantations, not small holdings of two acres or so.  We talked about interplanting and what crops farmers used in different countries to fix nitrogen into the soil, create soil stability and have more food for their families and the local markets.  We described natural pesticides and took a break for me to plant a muthega tree at the coop of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Matthai.  The tree is used as a natural pesticide and it made a big impression on the farmers.  I spent about two hours describing why they don’t get decent money for their crop, how prices are determined in New York, not in the field, and how to protect themselves from thieves coming into the “second window”. We had to change shillings into dollars, pounds into kilograms, and coffee cherries into green beans (about seven to one in Kenya), which made for a head pounding, exciting translation of information for farmers who had never had access to this before.  After several intense hours of questioning, we called it quits, applauding each other heartily.  Elias Matenge, head of the Thiriku Cooperative came up to me and patted my shoulder forcefully. “This has been revolutionary!” he beamed. “This was the best workshop I have ever attended!” shouted Nelson Mwaniki from Rianjagi. We all walked outside the meeting hall in a good mood.  Then the most unbelievable thing happened.

It started to rain.

(Read Part 1 of Dean's trip to Kenya)