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...real accomplishment, Dickinson will tell you, is what has happened in the 15 developing nations where Equal Exchange buys from indigenous farmer cooperatives. In Oaxaca, Mexico, residents ride a fleet of cooperative-funded buses on routes that take hours to walk. In La Libertad, El Salvador, children who used to walk past an empty school building now study inside with a teacher who is paid by the cooperative. In Chajul, Guatemala, a cooperative-funded health clinic is helping reduce child mortality. And in remote corners of Peru, growing numbers of children of uneducated farmers are leaving to pursue university degrees...
...Equal Exchange can also boast that it started a trend. About 450 coffee importers opt to pay above-market rates for certain beans and then sell the product as premium coffee in 45,000 stores nationwide with Fair Trade certification, an independent audit from TransFair USA. The Fair Trade sector accounts for just 2% of the $22 billion domestic retail coffee market. But the industry is striving to keep up with rising public expectations for the way the brew comes to market...
...Equal Exchange has helped create a new paradigm in an industry with a reputation for keeping suppliers poor. "The coffee industry for several hundred years has been viewed as a competition between producers and consumers," says Ted Lingle, executive director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. "Where the specialty market is changing is in getting everyone in the supply chain to recognize that there's a partnership [which entails] some sort of shared prosperity...
...Equal Exchange, countercultural thinking comes naturally. Employees ride bicycles and trains to pickup spots to minimize auto emissions en route to company headquarters in an industrial park in West Bridgewater. The office wing resembles a college dormitory: tapestries cover walls, posters plead for peace, an acoustic guitar sits atop the desk of Rob Everts, Dickinson's copresident and a former organizer of California farmworkers. As a matter of policy, top management earns no more than three times the salary of entry-level employees, who start at around $25,000 a year. After a probationary period, all employees own one share...
...Despite Equal Exchange's efforts, there's still a long way to go before coffee growers will have a fair deal. Serious problems persist for coffee producers in developing nations. Commodity prices have languished well below $1 per lb. for much of the past two decades, so crops have often been sold at a loss, leading many families to abandon their farms for a better life in the cities. "It's forcing families who have depended on coffee for income into destitution," says Matthew Aho, who is producing a documentary on Fair Trade's impact on Peruvian farmers...