Jason Hill is the Head Roaster of Higher Grounds Trading Co. In January, 2011, he visited the coffee growing communities of Southern Ethiopia where we buy our coffee. He arrived just in time to see the end of the Run Across Ethiopia and participate in the Co-op Sol Annual Meetings.
It’s a long way home from the birthplace of coffee. It’s hard to summarize a trip to the coffee fields of Ethiopia but I think it’s fair to say for a coffee roaster it’s on par with a vintner walking the antique vines of Bordeaux.
I landed in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa with a group of travelers from our coffee importing cooperative, Cooperative Coffees. The following morning we traveled to the southern coffee growing region of Yirgacheffe to meet up with the team of runners on the last couple days of their journey. It was an interesting experience to show up at a small roadside hotel in rural Africa and be greeted by a large group of friends and acquaintances from Traverse City area.
The third day of our trip I tried to shake off the jet leg and prepare to join the runners for the final 10 k into the coffee growing community of Ngele Gorbitu. Between the lack of sleep, elevation and lack of running preparation the run was a challenge. I felt pretty pathetic considering the people around me had been running for days on end and for hundreds of miles. It was inspiring to be running alongside hundreds of smiling faces. To say the community embraced us with open arms is an understatement. The last 1 k or so of the run we were greeted with a wall of people cheering us on. We ended the run in a cheering crowd of more than 3,000 villagers. The emotion was heavy and wonderful for me and I only ran the last day of the run. The sense of accomplishment the runners were feeling was palpable after running over 270 miles to get there. There was an amazing sense of accomplishment for everyone involved.
After the embraces and pictures we took our places amongst the crowd and listened and watch a group of traditional dancers. The musicians were wearing traditional clothing and dancing in a row formation to the blaring music. It was incredible to see this group of youth so enthusiastically carrying on the traditions of their culture. After the dancing came a host of speeches from one village leader after another. They talked about the power of education and the opportunity and hope it would bring to the children of the village. It was also a time of thanks and appreciation for the work the runners had done to raise funds for the school in their community.
The runners were given traditional fabric and the men were given crown like hats. It was a powerful moment for the runners and a true showing of the outpouring of love coming from the village. After the celebration we were treated to a local feast of traditional foods including raw meat. The gift of food in an area with so little is always such a humbling gift.
I think the celebration was bitter sweet for the runners. It gave them a sense of accomplishment and they were able to soak in the appreciation for what they had done; however on the other hand it meant the end of a journey.
It certainly wasn’t an end but a beginning for the work of On the Ground and Higher Grounds in our mission to make fair trade truly fair. We learned more about what this means in Ethiopia at our meeting the following days with leaders of the coffee growing unions of Yirgacheffe and Sidama. The concerns of these leaders were familiar. Even though they are getting better prices for their coffee than years past, it still isn’t enough. Their profits have gone up with the spike in global coffee prices but so too had the price of everyday life in Ethiopia. Many in their communities are still living in abject poverty lacking access to basic essentials such as clean water, health care and education.
This is one reason Higher Grounds founded the non-profit, On the Ground. It reaffirmed the lesson we have learned over the years that fair trade is not just about price, because price alone is not enough. An essential part needed for fair trade to be successful is the ongoing partnership with coffee growing communities. One aspect of this partnership is working to help with some of the pressing infrastructure needs of the communities. We heard time and time again how important education is to the children of these coffee farmers. The parents of these children see education as one way to break the cycle of poverty that has persisted in their communities for so long. Beyond infrastructure it’s important that we as producer partners work to continue to redefine the fair trade model so that we are looking beyond price alone. In this regard, I am proud of the bold steps Higher Grounds has taken to make this happen. It’s also important for people to realize that a big part of why fair trade is successful and how it can become even fairer is by choosing fair trade products whenever possible and requesting them when not offered
One bright spot we gleaned from our conversations with union leaders was that the cooperatives are now selling all of their coffee at fair trade prices even to conventional producers. The reason for this is that the fair trade market has shown the value of the high quality Ethiopian coffees we are buying and the unions can use this to leverage similar prices from conventional growers. They now know what their high quality coffee is worth and that if someone is not willing to pay the price, they can find another buyer who is willing.
The next several days were spent roaming the coffee fields and production facilities and meeting with the different cooperatives within the unions. This was an incredible experience to meet the people that were growing the coffee that we buy and see how they harvest and process it. The Ethiopian processing was an interesting change from what many of the coffee veterans within our group had seen in Central and South America.
Ethiopia is unique from other coffee producing countries in that its' farmers consume the coffee it produces. Coffee is a staple part of the diet and culture. I was fortunate enough to see several coffee ceremonies that start with roasting the beans over an open fire and then the beans are ground by hand and boiled in handmade ceramic kettles. The entire ceremony takes over an hour and is adorned with traditional fabrics and lighting of incense. Because of the importance of coffee within Ethiopia culture, great pride and care is taken in growing, harvesting and preparing it.
Overall the experience was overwhelming and hard to put into words. I am thankful for the close relationship Higher Grounds has forged with Ethiopia and look forward to our continued partnership in solidarity with our Ethiopian farmers.
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