Fair Trade

Face of Fair Trade: La FEM Coffee Cooperative

by Zarah Patriana

Published December 19, 2008 @ 12:04AM PT

Earlier, I made the call to offer your support for La FEM Coffee Cooperative and realized I did not give them a proper introduction. La FEM is a great example of why I am an advocate for the Fair Trade movement, so they really deserve to be a Face of Fair Trade.

La FEM (Fundacion Entre Mujeres) is a female-led cooperative based in Nicaragua that does more than grow and export coffee. They are a female-led coffee cooperative that is committed to promoting women's rights by working on issues of domestic violence against women, women's health, education and job training. They just also happen to run a coffee growing business.

The coffee growing world is a male dominated operation and in Nicaragua, women don't exactly receive equal treatment and have their rights observed. Machismo is pretty prevalent and women even have a hard time buying their own underwear with the man having their say.  So, the fact that La FEM even exists is pretty remarkable.

They are a 132-member cooperative that was established in 1996. Since it's inception, the cooperative has seen success both in their coffee growing business and also in improving the lives of the women growers. To strengthen their independence, La FEM established an alternative school where women are encouraged to learn trades such as construction and carpentry, which not only teaches them new skills but enables the women to rely more on themselves instead of on men.

They are a determined group of women dedicated to Fair Trade and proving that it is a viable business model. When Just Coffee visited La FEM in Nicaragua, they were impressed with how much these women meant business.

The meeting ended with all of us reading a piece about the co-optation of world leftists by the forces of capitalism. The authors contended that the left only looks to make neoliberalism more palatable and does not seek to end it. Fair trade was something the authors felt was reformist. It was really cool to have a round table discussion about this with producers and to flesh out why (or if) fair trade is worth its water. La FEM ends all of their Devo Committee meetings with analyzing and discussing political writings. We got the overall impression that all of the women have a great political critique down to the producer level.

For La FEM, Fair Trade is more than just receiving a higher price for their coffee.

The directivas from all FEM co-ops came to the meeting and they had some serious points for discussion. They sold their coffee to a German group last year under fair trade terms, but were disappointed by the lack of interest on the buyers' part to construct a larger project that extended beyond coffee. The producers wanted to know that Just Coffee and Co-op Coffees are interested in a deeper partnership, one that would build connections between people in our communities and the women of La FEM. They also wanted to make sure that their coffee would not end up at "Wal-Mart" or any other trans-national or unethical stores. They were intent on making sure that we market their coffee in a way that lets people know who they are and what they represent, not simply as “Nicaraguan Fair Trade Coffee”.

Fair Trade is about building community and long-lasting relationships. It is about investing on futures. It is about empowerment for these women, it is about proving that women are able to be independent coffee growers and are able to succeed without a man dictating their way of life. La FEM allows these women to have a say in their lives and really lets them realize their full potential. They are women. Watch them grow. Hear them roar. See them succeed.

[photos: Just Coffee]