Fair Trade Plus
Where each dollar for Just Haiti Coffee goes.
Just Haiti ensures that coffee growers receive, up front, the current fair trade price for their harvests. This will help them to achieve a decent living standard. But we go further. Just Haiti returns all profits from the sale of the coffee directly to the coffee growers and their families. In 2012, growers received 64% of the price of a bag of coffee.
Our ultimate goal goes even farther: for the growers’ associations to own and operate the entire business, including roasting and marketing. This will enable farm families to reap the full economic value of their harvest—and their labor.
Our approach—”fair trade plus”—enables families to gain access to better food, health care and education and to contribute to strengthening communities.
Fair-trade-plus also helps sustain the growers’ capacity to protect the environment. Most of Haiti has been deforested. In the past the country’s forests were relentlessly exploited for slow-growing native mahogany. Today, the mahogany—and the forests—are virtually gone.
Women Coffee Growers of Baraderes, Haiti
Today’s growers of organic, shade-grown coffee, such as the family farmers we are working with in Haiti, use sustainable techniques that maintain forests and their diversity. These techniques include composting the coffee pulp, growing compatible crops alongside the coffee and avoiding chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Fair-trade-plus increases income for subsistence farmers, enabling them to feed their families and pay for their children’s education. It also protects Haiti’s fragile environment, ensuring a future for generations to come.
