Gran Cafe is produced by a cooperative of organic coffee farmers in the Dominican Republic. For the past 10 years the cooperative has dedicated itself to developing the techniques and practices necessary for sustainable coffee production. Managing several hundred small farmers is no small task, and Gran has done a magnificent job.

However, their greatest shortcoming has been in the area of marketing. And this, my friends, is the dilemma of Fair Trade.  Although Gran would like to pursue Fair Trade certification, their limited revenue stream precludes the required investment in training and certification, which further exacerbates the difficulties in selling to a specialty market that increasingly requires Fair Trade certification as a prerequisite.

Year after year the coffee farmers in the Gran cooperative have sacrificed their organic certification to make a quick sale. For you see, it is the cooperative that is certified organic and not the individual farmer. When a farmer, or a group of farmers, decides that they can no longer wait for the cooperative to make a high volume sale, they sell their product individually.

From the farmer’s perspective, the urgency to sell results in the loss of the organic price premium. Eliminating pesticide use, building terraces for soil control, monitoring wildlife populations, and preventing contamination from outside sources, all in vain!  Have a look at the successful practices of Gran’s most accomplished farmer.

Not only is the farmer making a sacrifice, but when middle men and resellers get their hands on the organic coffee, they mix it with every kind of coffee imaginable and sell it to Nestle or Folgers or some other mega-corporation. This means that an enormous amount of coffee, after being produced organically, is being lost in the distribution process.

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