Globalization and Coffee – an Interfaith delegation This January twelve fair trade activists traveled to Chiapas Mexico on a delegation organized by the Interfaith Program at Equal Exchange, Witness for Peace, and United Church of Christ Jubilee Program. Participants came from a congregation of the Church of the Brethren in Ohio, a United Methodist congregation in Boulder City, Nevada, a Catholic High school in the Cleveland area, a Presbyterian church in Rockford, Illinois, a Quaker meeting in Tallahassee, Florida, and two United Church of Christ Congregations in Massachusetts. The delegation was the brain child of Rev. Stan Duncan of the United Church of Christ Jubilee Task Force and the UCC Church of Abington, MA. We arrived in Chiapas and started studying the current situation for cooperatives of small scale coffee farmers in the broader political and economic context of Chiapas and Mexico. We also learned of the impact of US. government policies in the region. We met with Mexican and international organizations based in Chiapas to better understand the current human rights situation. We were honored to attend a mass celebrating the 46th anniversary of the investure of Bishop Emeritus Samuel Ruiz Garcia in the San Cristobal Diocese.		Peter Buck from Equal Exchange and the Rev. Stan Duncan examining green pergamino coffee beans in the CIRSA warehouse in Simojovel, Chiapas.
We traveled to the town of Simojovel de Allende to meet with the elected leadership of CIRSA coffee cooperative (Indigenous Communities of the Region of Simojovel de Allende), one of Equal Exchange’s trading partners. Then we traveled on curvy and mountainous roads to the community of Francisco Villa. We hiked the last hour into the community and were greeted by the warm sound of a marimba band. As a part of our welcome the band continued to play for 36 hours. The community had never had a delegation visit before and our reception was festive and heartfelt. We climbed up to the high altitude coffee trees to learn firsthand the experience of coffee. In Francisco Villa we helped to plant, harvest, sort, depulp and dry the coffee beans. Members of the CIRSA cooperative who lived in the community, both men and women, explained their history to us and asked us to go home and be promoters for them and for Fair Trade. After a final mass and feast we returned to San Cristobal de Las Casas for our wrap up and to brainstorm how we could take this experience home to our own communities. Participants were impacted and transformed by their time in Chiapas and are becoming promoters of Fair Trade and Equal Exchange as they continue work for justice.

“Now I know the true value of the coffee I drink. I know why fairly traded coffee or fairly traded anything is important. I know the love of the farmer for the soil and why organic agriculture is the best way to grow coffee to protect the soil and the farmer’s future. If you buy the cheapest coffee at a big box supermarket you only cheapen yourself. Your bargain has cheated the farmers of their livelihood and despoiled the earth. When you support your local cooperative like New Leaf and other coops like CIRSA and Equal Exchange, you make a moral statement with your purchase and you can brew a healthy cup of coffee, with the subtle elusive flavor of justice in each sip.”

- Jeff Bastian of Tallahassee Florida. Participant in Jan 2006 delegation to Chiapas.

• Julia Jones spoke about the delegation, Chiapas, Fair Trade and coffee at the Sunday February 12th service at First Presbyterian Church in Rockford
  
  
• Jeff Bastian developed a web page for the Interfaith delegation to Chiapas. It can be found at http://www.nettally.com/bastian/ and will have an article on coffee and globalization coming out in the March issue of the Apalachee Tortoise, a newspaper in Tallahassee Florida. His daughter Hope Bastian, a Witness for Peace Mexico team member and co-coordinator of the delegation will have an article in the March-April 2006 edition of NACLA on Fair Trade coffee.
  
  
• David Amdur will be speaking on fair trade coffee and the delegation to Chiapas in an upper level sociology class, Globalization and Migration, at Western Connecticut State University later this Spring

Women from Francisco Villa in Simojovel, Chiapas
picking high altitude coffee with the 2006 Interfaith Delegation