Issue date: 10/24/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Mustafa Al-ammar Infusion Cafe owner Jason Huber (center) and Peruvian coffee farmer Eulalia Valder Palomino (right) answer questions about Fair Trade coffee at an event at the 40th street Metropolitain Bakery yesterday. [Click to enlarge]

Six thousand feet above sea level, on the flanks of the Peruvian Andes, a remote community of organic coffee farmers still follow the ancient Incan philosophy of Ayni.

Expressed by the phrase "today for you, tomorrow for me," Ayni describes the reciprocal spirit that still underlies relations between San Fernando farmers.

But this week, soft-spoken farmer Beltran Leguiacutea Masias is experiencing Ayni on a far broader scale: meeting the people who buy his coffee from Fair Trade shops across the world, in Philadelphia.

Masias and 421 of his fellow farmers comprise the San Fernando Cooperative, a branch of the Peruvian co-op COCLA.

COCLA sells its members' coffee to Fair Trade company Equal Exchange, who in turn vends the product to select U.S. coffee shops, such as Independents Coffee Cooperative stores in Philadelphia.

The venture benefits every party because it circumvents the chain of salaried brokers who mediate most international trade. Equal Exchange pays the San Fernando farmers $241 for every hundred pounds of coffee - more than three times their profit rate before they started the co-op in 1994.

"Our lives have changed a lot," reflected Masias yesterday morning at the Metropolitan Bakery on 40th street. "We sell our products at a much higher price. They pay us a fair price."

"People have improved their homes, their mode of living," interjected Eulalia Valdez Palomino, a COCLA representative who accompanied Masias on his trip to the U.S. "Rural farming families are able to provide an education for their children."

Equal Exchange sales representative L.J. Taylor brought Masias and Palomino to Philadelphia in order to "make a connection between the two communities - so that they understand how their actions are impacting each other."

Jim Lilly, owner of the 40th street Metropolitan Bakery, offered to host a breakfast for the Peruvian visitors because he wanted to "meet them and let them know what we do here to support their cause."

The San Fernando Cooperative is running a special campaign right now to raise money for solar dryers. Their town does not have electricity, so they must dry their coffee beans in the sun: a slow operation often thwarted by rain. Independents store owners have pledged to donate one dollar to the dryer fund for every pound of San Fernando coffee they sell between now and July 2008.

Approximately twenty customers stopped by the table where Palomino and Masias sat on yesterday with an interpreter, asking questions and complimenting Masias on the quality of his coffee.

"It's excellent stuff," one customer said.

Masias needed no translation. "That's my coffee," he burst out in Spanish, proudly tapping himself on the chest. "I grew that."

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