Nicaragua Coffee Fair Trade 1: Role of faith communities, dry mills, wet mills and co-ops
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(Marquette, Michigan) - While Upper Peninsula residents endured an arctic blast, two Northern Michigan University students started the New Year learning about Fair Trade during the peak of the coffee growing season in Nicaragua.
Since their return on January 12, Lisa McCarthy and Sarah Swanson have begun a series of presentations at U.P. churches to encourage Americans to buy Fair Trade coffee that ensures poor Nicaraguan farmers don't lose money in the labor-intensive industry of coffee production.
In part 1 of a three-part video series, the students look at the role of faith communities, Nicaragua coffee farmers, and coffee cooperatives in Fair Trade movement; Northern Michigan University students talk about work that goes into growing coffee including wet mills, dry mills and the process of quality/taste testing called "cupping."
From staring into the mouth of the Masaya Volcano to traveling narrow mountain roads to stay with coffee-farming families to picking beans and participating in all phases of coffee production, the trip was a myth-shattering experience.
The students are the latest of hundreds of faith community representatives traveling to Central American over the last decade with Lutheran World Relief (LWR) to get a quick course on Fair Trade while erasing misconceptions about Nicaragua's hard-working low-income farmers who take pride in their coffee.
Since their return on January 12, Lisa McCarthy and Sarah Swanson have begun a series of presentations at U.P. churches to encourage Americans to buy Fair Trade coffee that ensures poor Nicaraguan farmers don't lose money in the labor-intensive industry of coffee production.
In part 1 of a three-part video series, the students look at the role of faith communities, Nicaragua coffee farmers, and coffee cooperatives in Fair Trade movement; Northern Michigan University students talk about work that goes into growing coffee including wet mills, dry mills and the process of quality/taste testing called "cupping."
From staring into the mouth of the Masaya Volcano to traveling narrow mountain roads to stay with coffee-farming families to picking beans and participating in all phases of coffee production, the trip was a myth-shattering experience.
The students are the latest of hundreds of faith community representatives traveling to Central American over the last decade with Lutheran World Relief (LWR) to get a quick course on Fair Trade while erasing misconceptions about Nicaragua's hard-working low-income farmers who take pride in their coffee.
