Fair Trade Coffee: Higher Ground Trading Company

Organic, Shade Grown, Good for All

Jesus said, 'pay the worker the wage he is due. Do not cheat him out of his fair wage.' Every time I enjoy a cup of coffee lately, I feel a pricking of conscience. Is the coffee that I am enjoying grown under green conditions? Is it renewing or stripping the land? And most importantly, are the coffee plantation harvesters earning a fair wage? Are workers families thriving? Or as is more common, are the workers putting blood, sweat and tears into a job that does not sustain their families?

I've heard complaints about the rising costs of coffee. Who is benefiting from that increased cost? I'm sure that there are variables that affect the costs: weather, length of growing season, storms. But overall, who is 'reaping' the rewards, who is earning most from every cup of coffee that I drink? Is the cost of my morning cup of coffee, or my coffee shop treat benefiting everyone involved in the coffee growing process fairly? Or do the few grow fat, while the majority grow leaner and more impoverished?

I realize that I can no longer enjoy my coffee if others are suffering to produce it. Last Saturday night, my family and I did something we've never done before. It wasn't any big deal. It was easy and enjoyable. We stayed for about a half and hour after Saturday mass and sold fair trade coffee in the narthex of the church. A fellow parishioner has been selling this coffee after the Sunday morning service for several years.

We purchased some of the coffee: Higher Grounds Trading Coffee is the brand we sell. It's fairly traded, organic, shade grown coffee. The sale of higher Higher Grounds coffee also funds the Oromia Photo Project and the Water for All Campaign, both of which are global initiatives which provide potable drinking water and support education and indigenous rights. It was the best coffee we had ever tasted. We asked if we could help by selling on Saturday evening. She showed us how. And it was that simple.