Community Development From The Ground Up: Social-Justice Coffee

Abstract

This article examines the fair trade paradigm through a study of the Mexican coffee-producing cooperative UCIRI and the U.S. importer-roaster Equal Exchange. This alternative to conventional trade is a partnership aimed at satisfying the interests of small farmers, coffee roasters, and consumers. Farmers in democratic cooperatives collectively address crop and environmental improvement, organic certification, in-country processing, and the negotiation of contracts with roasters in the North. A portion of profits are reinvested in community improvements. Roasters pay a fair trade price, provide credit, and promote the community development context of the coffee in their marketing. We argue that the process is best understood as a social movement aimed at grassroots development. Roasters are both material beneficiaries and conscience constituents, linked to producers and consumers in a moral economy which promotes social solidarity and enhances the social capital of each sector in the movement.

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