October marked the start of a special fair trade drive in Lutheran parishes and households across the U.S. The goal is to double the use of fairly traded coffee here, doubling the resulting benefit that fair trade delivers to hard-pressed coffee farmers overseas.
The Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Lutheran World Relief have begun "Pour Justice to the Brim: The 90-Ton Challenge," a year-long push to encourage more congregations and more church members to use coffee that is produced and priced to remedy basic inequities in the conventional coffee trade.
"In the seven years since the LWR Coffee Project was launched, more than 3,100 parishes have made a commitment to fair trade," said Brenda Meier, who manages the project for LWR. "At a time when the conventional market price for coffee is around 50 cents a pound, and fair trade coffee earns two-and-a-half times as much, $1.26 a pound, it's imperative for more and more parishes to help meet — or exceed — the 90-ton challenge."
Ways to reach 90 tons are featured in the October issue of Lutheran Women Today, the magazine of the Women of the ELCA. Parishes are using fair trade cafes, fund-raisers, forums and fair trade gift baskets to successfully promote fair trade. Sales of fair trade coffee through the project jumped 64 percent last year — to 45 tons.
LWR is offering two visits with coffee farmers in El Salvador and Nicaragua this winter. The coffee in the LWR Coffee Project comes from small farmers in Central America and other countries, including Haiti, Indonesia adn Tanzania. For information about the LWR Coffee Project adn the 90-Ton Challenge, visit www.lwr.org/coffee.
(Lutheran World Relief News Release — October 2003)