Those of you who have read my book, Javatrekker, will remember how I got clobbered in Kenya trying to create fair and transparent trade a few years ago.  There was so much corruption and so little information or options for the farmers that It looked like fair trade and organics would never take root there.  Yet the coffee farmers of Kenya are a tenacious bunch. In spite of a year-long drought, election violence and market disruptions, they have continued to organize and seek help towards bringing more money and resources to their families.  They haven’t quit, so how could I?

I arrived in Embu with John Njoroge, the head of the Kenya Institute of Organic Farming, whom we had funded last year to come to the USA and receive certification as an international organic inspector.  Building organic capacity in Kenya is a key part of our strategy, so that farmers won’t have to rely on European and American inspectors to create and monitor their systems (very expensive and pretty darn colonial!).  The year- long drought in the area meant that every step raised a cloud of dust, and the crops were withered and sickly. I was greeted by the head of the Rianjagi Cooperative, Albert Mwaniki, who told me that he never forgot that I had said “if trade was not fair, then it was immoral”, and he was eager to continue the quest for fairness for the farmers. We immediately began laying out the program for Rianjagi to become the first organic certified coffee cooperative in Kenya, a three-year process that would demand a lot of work on the farmers’ part. We needed to set up an Internal Control System to document and monitor farm practices, set up training programs in water and soil conservation, build demonstration plots for natural pesticides and new practices, file with an international body for recognition and more. KIOF, Dean’s Beans and Rianjagi would sign a Memorandum of Agreement on who would be responsible for what, and most significantly, who would pay for all of this (guess who?). Just beyond the door of the coop office, women and men sang softly while they turned the coffee beans on their raised drying beds, bringing the moisture down to the required 12 percent before hulling, grading and bagging the beans for export. We worked late into the night designing the program, celebrating with a great dinner of everything grown on the farm of Molly Njeru, the Vice Chair of Rianjagi and a dedicated organic farmer.

We also talked about the big change in Kenya.  Before, farmers were forced to sell their coffee to the big processor, KPCU, which was theoretically owned by the coops, but was controlled by the government. At last the law had been changed to allow the farmers to find their own buyers and market their coffee directly. This was known as the “second window”. They thanked me for the small role I played in that change, as my whistle blowing on corruption inside KPCU pushed the changes along, they said. Well, I don’t know about that, but at least one minister and many KPCU board members were dismissed as a result. Some satisfaction for the incredible rip-off we experienced trying to buy Rianjagi coffee before. We also talked about fair trade coming to Kenya.  There were now three registered fair trade coops, although no certified organic ones.  Were the fair trade coops making better money? Nobody knew, and there are still enough Byzantine regulations and channels of commerce outside of the farmers’ control that I don’t think anyone will know for a while.

The next day we celebrated the inauguration of a new computer system that would allow complete transparency and accountability for the farmers. They could go on the computer and see exactly what they brought in, what it sold for, how much was added to their accounts and who the buyers were.  This was funded by Solidaridad, a Netherlands NGO along with Utz Kapeh, a self-certifying system for large European coffee importers. The claim to fame of the Utz system is transparency, but it doesn’t guarantee the farmers any more money. One of the board members commented sardonically that it was a good system, but they can’t eat computer paper.  The new Minister for Cooperative Development was there (the old one got canned after my debacle, although he is now the head of exports! It seems politicians know a lot about sustainability).  I gave a short speech about how impressed I was with the changes since my last visit, and how much more we had to go to insure fair treatment for Kenyan coffee farmers...

Read Part 2 of Dean's Kenya trip.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”), government officials and scientists from more than 100 countries, wrangled for weeks in Brussels  in early 2007 as to whether global warming was a man-made or a natural phenomenon.  They argued over droughts, air circulation patterns, snowfall, icecaps and a thousand other indicators of whether global warming was “likely” or “directly” our fault.  In spite of the strong belief in the scientific community that all of our cars, factories and other activities were speeding up global warming at an alarming rate, the politicians managed to get the official word to be “likely”.

High in the Sierra Nevada (“Snow-Capped Mountains”) of Colombia, indigenous Arhuaco coffee farmer Javier Mestres had no such doubts.  He did not see things in parts per million.  He had never heard of the Global Circulation Model that tried to measure increments of change in the temperature of the ocean or dynamics of the atmosphere.  He was unaware that the IPCC report stated that Colombia would heat up dramatically in the next twenty years, and lose ninety percent of its glacial snow caps by 2050.  Javier saw the results of a warming planet clearly in the premature flowering of his coffee plants on his four-acre family farm in the slopes above Nabusimake, the capital of the Arhuaco nation. He showed me the smaller, weaker berries that dotted the stems and wondered why the outside world wanted to harm these beautiful plants.  Why were we changing the world? 

For centuries, the Arhuaco spiritual elders, the Mamos, known in their language as the “Elder Brothers”, have carried out monthly rituals in sacred sites throughout the Sierra Nevada, which they call “the Heart of the World”, to insure that the planet is kept in a geo-spiritual balance.  But for the past two decades, the Mamos have been observing rapid changes in the Heart of the World.  They have watched the snow caps on their sacred peaks shrink over time and have seen the plant life change.  They have felt the lessening of the water in the air and soil, and noted the changing migration patterns of the birds and butterflies.  They have shared these observations with the tribe, and increasingly with the outside world, with us - the “Younger Brothers”.

I was in Colombia to learn about the impacts of global warming on the Heart of the World.  I was there to assist the Arhuaco in their struggle for self-determination, supported (and challenged) in part by coffee.  I was there to heal the wound in my heart from the kidnapping and murder of my dear friend, renowned indigenous rights activist Ingrid Washinawatok, in 1999 by the leftist rebel group FARC (“Armed Revolutionary Front of Colombia”).  It was a visit that had been delayed many times by war, weather or fear.

I met with Moises Villafanes, a young Arhuaco whom the Mamos had sent to university to learn to be an advocate for his people in the world of the Younger Brothers.  I asked Moises about how the impact of changing temperatures on Arhuaco lands and coffee production.  Moises talked for a long time about the drying up of rivers due to the lessened snow at the peaks and the erratic rainfall of the past few years, and the movement of plant species up the mountains as a result of greater heat and less water at the lower altitudes.

“It is as if you can see the plants trying to run from the sun and the heat, which should not be so strong in the lower zones.”  Moises spoke with a combination of scientific awareness and poetry that made things incredibly clear.  He introduced me to an 83 year-old Mamo, Don Faumbautista, who shared his insight with me.

“Beyond the Heart of the World, the Younger Brother is changing the whole earth.  I don’t know everything they are doing, but they are changing the whole earth,”

“Are you talking about global warming?” I asked.

“I don’t know what you call it, but, yes, the Mother is getting warmer.  The rain falls differently than before.  It is later, but it falls harder.  It is destructive sometimes when it should be nurturing.  Many of the rivers are dry before they reach the sea.  And the snows on the peaks that replenish the rivers are less each year.  It is all happening very quickly.  First, you took our gold.  Then you took our land.  Now you are taking the water and the air itself.  The Younger Brothers are waging a war on the earth and it must stop!”

There is a lot of other evidence on the impact of global warming on coffee production (and, therefore, producers!) around the world.  The United Nations estimates that 90% of Ugandan low-altitude coffee will disappear in twenty years.  A similar report documents the impacts of erratic rainfall and increased temperature and withering forests on coffee production in India.  But what you have just read comes from the farmers themselves, who are painfully aware of global warming and can’t do anything about it.

We can.