Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
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FEMALE FORCE continued from page 37 COMING TOGETHER: IWCA member Mireya Asturias Jones (center) with representatives from coffee-growing countries. Member Mireya Asturias Jones organizes origin trips for the IWCA and works with the Women in Coffee chapter in her native Guatemala. She says that women are already the backbone of most coffee-growing communities, but access to education gives them greater power to lead. "Men can leave more readily," she says, but women have an inclination to stay in their communities and take care of children and elders. She cites civil war and genocide as other reasons that more women are producing coffee, noting that entire villages of men were annihilated throughout Africa. In communities where men still hold ownership of farms, Jones has witnessed firsthand the power of educating women as much as men. "As soon as women were educated enough, it almost became as though there were no difference because they could talk the talk and walk the walk," she says. "That wasn't happening before; it was really a man's world." RAISING AWARENESS THROUGH BRANDING Some of the most important work being done in the coffee and tea industries today involves person-to-person connections. When we hear or read about "seed to cup," about baristas and roasters visiting origin, and about the power of fair trade, what we are really witnessing is a transition from a global marketplace to a global community, a unified construct supporting the basic human rights of every member of the supply chain. Part of bolstering the livelihoods of individuals throughout the industry, whether they are coffee growers, tea pickers, micro-roasters, cuppers or tea blenders, is getting to know the stories of those indi- viduals who fuel the production of coffee and tea, and identifying how we can aid their good work. The coffee and tea farmed by women starts in small communities, but its impact is felt across the global market. Advancing practices and education at the source is a starting point, but as these products move along the supply chain, their story often gets lost along the way. By keeping their story in the public eye through branding and marketing, women receive greater support from the global community, and ideally a greater return on their hard work. Certifications have been integral in creating a more sustainable coffee and tea industry, and they are already very useful in protecting the rights of women. Before fair-trade certifications, foundations and NGOs had difficulty communicating the needs of farmers and growers to consumers. But with certifications, each bag of coffee or box of tea offers an opportunity for consumers to become more involved in the industries they've long supported. According to Reem Rahim, co-founder of Numi Tea, fair-trade and fair-labor tea gardens offer a very different lifestyle for growers. Women are afforded everything from access to childcare, better schooling for children, supplies for cooking and other helpful amenities. "Men are doing the processing, the tasting and the blending, but women are doing more of the field labor," she says. "But in the fair-trade gardens it's much better." A new coffee certification, developed by Alamana Harvest, is the coffee industry's first certification system to ensure a fair and sustainable lifestyle for female growers. "Harvested by Women"certified coffee is grown by farmers belonging to several of the IWCA's producing chapters, who are both fairly compensated for their beans and able to receive sustainability education with continued on page 40 38 Fresh Cup Magazine freshcup.com