Coffee Grown by Women
One of the major challenges of the 21st Century is to recognise the value of female farmers in our food chains and to work on greater gender equality. Women should have the same access to choices, income and training as men. Coffee drinkers have been unaware for decades of the level of work done by women farmers to bring us our daily cup of coffee. In our quest to bring farmers and consumers closer together we think this is an important story to tell.
Making the Invisible Visible
Smallholders, not estates, produce most of the world’s coffee and some of the best too. Yet despite women often doing most of the work on the farm they can have little influence. Evidence shows that where women control household income the family’s health, nutrition and education improves at a faster rate because less money is spent outside the household.
In 2011, with our partner Twin Trading, we developed our range of Grown by Women coffees. These coffees are sourced directly from the female members of the co-operatives and are fully traceable. Back then we pondered for a long time on what to call this range of coffees. Women’s coffee didn’t quite sound right. So we decided on Coffee Grown by Women.
The driver behind this range was two-fold. Firstly we wanted to make the invisible visible. Coffee drinkers have been unaware for decades of the level of work done by women farmers to bring us our daily cup of coffee. In our quest to bring farmers and consumers closer together we think this is an important story to tell. Secondly, we wanted to make a difference on the ground and promote gender justice.
- Despite women doing up to 70% of the work on a coffee farm it is still mainly men that are the members of co-ops, receive training and crucially, receive payments.
- Women have limited access to the decision-making process.
- In some areas women find it hard, if not impossible, to legally own land.
- At the same time women still carry the bulk of the work involved in running the household.
Building an individual’s self-confidence and changing an embedded culture can be a long and slow process. What is key is that these issues were brought to the fore by the coffee co-operatives themselves. This isn’t a Western ideal that is being thrust upon unwilling people. Communities realised that although Fair Trade and other wider developments can bring benefits, women are being left behind.
Equal Exchange wants to address this by working with co-ops to develop gender policies and to find ways to allow women to be members in their own right. The goals are to:
- Close the gender gap
- Increase rural income by improving coffee quality and productivity
- Leads to nutritional benefits for the families as well as an increase in educational attainment.
Giving women access to training can also strengthen their resilience to climate change providing benefits to their own farms and the wider coffee community.
Your Purchase Supports Women Farmers
Our Grown by Women products are sourced exclusively from female farmer members of the co-operatives we work with, this includes UNICAFEC in Peru and Sopexxca in Nicaragua. They provide us with speciality grade, washed arabica coffee. The coffee is included in our organic Medium, Dark and Espresso coffee products and also in our flagship Grown by Women Blend.
“As a woman and a farmer, I have lots of dreams and goals, but the main ones are to improve my family’s quality of life
...to continue improving our processing facilities to obtain a high-quality coffee, both in terms of production and in the cup; and to receive personalised technical assistance to help us improve our production.”
Flor Del Carmen Merino Garcia
UNICAFEC Co-op, Peru