How to Grow A Market

The CRS Fair Trade program grew by leaps and bounds in 2006, with the newly formed chocolate program selling over $200,000 worth of fair trade chocolate alone. But there's more to fair trade than working directly with producers to bring goods to the United States. How does CRS make sure that the overall fair trade market in the United States — as well as the groups that provide our coffee, handcrafts and chocolate — is growing, too? The answer: the CRS Fair Trade Fund.

Members of an indigenous coffee-farmer's cooperative.

Every time you purchase fair trade coffee, chocolate or handcrafts through the CRS Fair Trade program, a percentage of your purchase goes to the CRS Fair Trade Fund to help expand the fair trade system. Through the Fair Trade Fund, CRS makes targeted, high-impact Development Grants to help artisans and farmers overseas succeed in the U.S. fair trade market, and Market-Building Grants that have unique potential to help grow the market for fair trade products here in the United States. So far, over $200,000 in grants have been awarded by the Fund to groups both here in the United States and overseas, including the Women's Coffee Roastery Project in Guatemala.

In the western highlands of Guatemala, the indigenous people of the area have organized a small association of organic coffee farmers. The women of the group participate in the Women's Coffee Roastery, a project that the cooperative inaugurated several years ago as part of its gender programming. A small amount of green coffee is set aside each year for these women to roast, grind, package and sell locally. By preparing the coffee for market in the same place it is grown (rather than going through intermediaries, who each take a share of the profit), the women are able to earn $3 to $4 per pound for their coffee. That's more than twice the price the cooperative gets for its green coffee. The women keep the money they make through the sale of roasted coffee and control the use of that income within their households.

At first, the women were using a rudimentary roaster — a steel drum with a crank suspended over an earthen, wood-burning stove. It took hours to slow-roast each batch, and the women needed to crank the drum continuously in order to produce an even roast and keep the coffee from burning. Since the roaster was located inside, the smoke it generated made it virtually impossible for anyone to work the crank for more than four or five minutes at a time. That meant a team of women was needed to run the roaster. Using this method, it took nearly six hours to produce 18 pounds of roasted coffee.

Members of the Women's Roastery Project using meat grinders to grind coffee.

Getting Ahead of the Daily Grind

With a grant from the fund, the members of the Women's Roastery Project were able to purchase an electric roaster and grinder. Now their operations are more efficient and less hazardous to their health — and they can produce better coffee with less effort.

The women sell their coffee to CRS offices in the capital and a few tourist locations, but they still lack a strategic marketing plan. The Fair Trade Fund is currently working with the group on a follow-up proposal that will help them market their products to more customers in Guatemala.

As you are making your shopping decisions this holiday season, consider giving the gift of fair trade with a tax-deductible contribution to the CRS Fair Trade Fund. And consider making a New Year's resolution to buy and sell fair trade coffee, chocolate and crafts in your home and in your parish.

For more information on the CRS Fair Trade program, please visit www.crsfairtrade.org, or call 866-608-5978 for more information on how you can make a difference today.