This month’s Blackboard has as its theme one of Guatemala’s most well-known exports. So we encourage you to sit back, relax and read this issue of the Blackboard over a cup of what has been described by Alexander Pope as “the beverage that can make even politicians wise.” - The Staff at Avivara
Once you wake up and smell the coffee, it’s hard to go back to sleep…
Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world, after oil. It is estimated that the global coffee industry earns in excess of $60 billion dollars annually, yet less than 10% of those earnings end up in the countries where the coffee is produced, and slightly less than 0.5% of the total earnings translate into wages for those who actually labor to produce the coffee. For every $3.25 latte sold in the U.S., approximately 1 penny of that goes to the workers who do the actual work of growing and harvesting the coffee beans.Approximately the size of the state of Tennessee, Guatemala is well known for its many volcanoes, picturesque lakes, and coffee. After Colombia, Guatemala ranks second in the world in the amount of high-grade coffee it produces, and has the highest percentage of its crop classified as “high quality” by world-wide buyers. Over half of its coffee is exported to the U.S., representing around 15% of the Guatemalan Gross National Product and generating about 1/3 of Guatemala’s foreign exchange.
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Fair Trade Coffee in Guatemala
The Fair Trade movement was launched in the Netherlands in 1988. Although coffee was the first, and most common fair trade certified product, other fair-trade commodities now include bananas, chocolate, honey, tea, sugar, orange juice and indigenous handicrafts. Currently, Fair Trade coffee constitutes approximately 2% of the world’s coffee supply and can be purchased at over 7,000 retail outlets in the United States. To be classified as Fair Trade, the coffee (and the growers) must meet several criteria. Growers must be organized into democratically run cooperatives and the cooperatives must agree to independent inspections. They must also use sustainable methods of agriculture….
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