Gaylene Smith isn’t afraid to take a leap of faith. In fact, that kind of daring is
precisely what inspired the creation of Café Femenino, an ambitious
project created last year to connect and empower female coffee growers
in origin countries that have traditionally offered few rights to
women. For more than a decade, Smith, co-owner of Organic Products
Trading Co. (OPTCO) in Vancouver, Wash., has been importing coffee from
co-ops in remote areas of northern Peru, a country where a shocking
number of women suffer from daily oppression and physical or emotional
abuse.
Over the years, Smith became more aware of and concerned about the
subjugation of the women in coffee-growing communities with which OPTCO
worked, and she felt a need to address the problem, particularly since
she herself had overcome profound personal challenges in the past that
tested her strength and courage as a woman. Smith was especially
disturbed by how stripped of basic decision-making rights these women
growers were; they weren’t even able to help decide how the money
coming into their co-op would be spent. But changing generations of
deeply ingrained social morés would be no easy task.
Organizing
the women seemed like the logical fist step, so in partnership with
PROASSA, the local exporter; CICAP, a Peru-based NGO; and CECANOR, the
2,500-member co-op with which OPTCO worked, the female coffee growers
decided to gather as a group to share their experiences and brainstorm
about how to improve their lives. In 2003, the women convened for the
first time, and out of that meeting came the idea to separate their
coffee from the rest of CECANOR’s production. Smith vividly recalls the
women approaching OPTCO to help sell the coffee. “My heart said, ‘It’s
my job to do this,’” she says. “I just knew it was a responsibility I
was supposed to take on.”
OPTCO agreed to sell Café Femenino as a fair-trade coffee, even
committing to pay an additional two cents per pound on top of the
fair-trade price. This additional premium provides extra income that
goes directly into the hands of the women producers, and they are in
charge of choosing what to spend the money on.
From Concept to Reality
Over the next year, the women growers continued to gather for small
regional meetings, sharing stories and developing a unified vision for
their future. Smith worked with the women on developing a name and logo
for the project—hence, Café Femenino—and she and the women created
guidelines for roasters who wanted to sell the coffee. First, whenever
possible, a woman at a roasting company is asked to sign the
contract and participate in the sales and marketing of the coffee.
Second, the name Café Femenino must be used in the labeling; third, the
coffee cannot be blended and must be sold as a single-origin; and
finally, a minimum of $.01 per pound must be donated to a women’s
crisis program in the roaster’s community or back to the Café Femenino
project for programs for the women growers.
In
September of 2004, the farmers gathered for their second annual
meeting, and this time, they invited Smith to speak to the group.
Again, Smith took a leap of faith. “I did not have a clue what I was
supposed to say,” she recalls. “But faith told me that the words would
be given to me and therefore I did not have to worry about it. Then, on
our family vacation in the first part of August, I woke up one morning
and the speech was in my head. I got up, asked for a pen and paper, and
wrote the words down.”
During her speech, Smith told the women they were embarking on a shared
dream. “It’s frightening and, at the same time, very exciting,” she
told them. “We will need to depend on each other to work very hard and
be very committed to the success of Café Femenino. The quality of the
coffee must be superb, because that is the kind of women we are. This
dream will bless us in ways we don’t yet know, except that we all
believe in it and know that only together can we make it come true.”
There are currently 464 women growers involved with the Café Femenino
project, and in producing their special coffee, they participate on all
levels, from working the soil to harvesting, de-pulping and drying.
“It’s unprecedented to have women involved in all aspects of
production, buying and selling,” says Stacy Marshall, co-owner of
Grounds for Change, a roaster wholesaler and retailer in Washington
State that sells Café Femenino coffee.
Smith says the hope is that changing the roles of women will help
improve the quality of life in these communities while building a
sustainable economic system. “We are working to raise self-esteem and
to change the view of women’s roles,” she says. “We are working to
start economic activities that generate sales the women can control.”
Smith adds that even men in the co-op and the community are supporting
the project. “The men have to be part of the healing process,” she
says. “It doesn’t mean everything has changed, but it allows us to
create pressure for the change.”
Gaining the men’s support has been easier because the Café Femenino
project focuses on communities as a whole. “We were worried about
bringing attention to women in areas where that might backfire and make
things even worse,” says Randy Wirth, co-owner and roaster for Caffe
Ibis, a roaster wholesaler and retailer in Logan, Utah. “That’s why we
want to show that this is not just about recognizing women farmers—it’s
about supporting the entire community.”
An Easy Sell
Since Café Femenino debuted last fall, Smith says roasters across the
United States have enthusiastically embraced the project, and as of
early January, 18 had purchased the coffee. “It gives roasters an
opportunity to compete against the Starbucks of the world because they
have something so special,” she says.
Marshall was immediately drawn to the coffee and has been humbled by
the response from her customers. “We’ve had tremendous support above
and beyond what we ever thought would happen,” she says. “I just had
three wholesale orders come in within the last three hours, all of
which ordered Café Femenino.”
Marshall adds that Café Femenino has rapidly become one of her
top-selling coffees. “We’ve been carrying it for a couple of months,
and it’s really up there in terms of being one our most popular roasts.
I think it’s because of the cause it supports and that we’re giving
back 25 cents on the pound to the co-op in addition to what OPTCO is
doing.”
At the same time, she says the coffee’s flavor—which she describes as
rich, full and chocolaty—has been generating glowing reviews from
customers. “It’s become extremely popular for its taste,” she says. “We
have a number of local customers who only want Café Femenino because of
the flavor.”
The positive response is heartwarming to Marshall because Café Femenino
perfectly dovetails with the company’s mission to support sustainable
and socially just coffee.
“Grounds for Change was built on the premise that we would do as much
good as we could through coffee,” she says. “Café Femenino works into
that model because it allows us to directly give back to and support
this collective of women producers in Peru.”
Like Grounds for Change, Caffe Ibis viewed Café Femenino as a natural
addition to its line of triple-certified coffees. “I think the most
important thing is that the coffee underlines something that has always
been a core value of our business: tying our personal values and
business values together,” says Wirth. “Café Femenino not only
addresses the issues we’ve focused on for years—shade-grown, organic
and fair-trade—but it goes a step further in dealing with a very
important social situation.”
Wirth says he’s seen notable interest from many of the niche markets
within Caffe Ibis’s customer base. Recently, for instance, a large
fundraising group called Higher Ground signed on to use Café Femenino
exclusively as its fundraising coffee, and Caffe Ibis also sealed a
deal to provide coffee for a four-day celebrity event during the
international Sundance Film Festival. “The promoters were totally off
the wall over the Café Femenino story,” he says.
While many customers are drawn to the story of Café Femenino, Wirth is
always quick to emphasize the quality of the coffee. “People will buy
for a cause once, but if the quality isn’t there, they won’t come
back,” he says. “So it has to be sustainable in terms of cup quality.”
In addition to Café Femenino’s benefits at origin, Smith says an
unexpected outcome has been the way the project empowers women on the
purchasing end. “Women in some of these roastery companies are coming
forward in a position they’ve never had before,” she says. “So we’re
changing their perception of themselves and their company.”
The Café Femenino Foundation
Once the seed for Café Femenino was planted, the project quickly gained
momentum, and by last December, Gay and her husband Garth took things a
step further by establishing the Café Femenino Foundation.
“We never anticipated that we would need to move forward so quickly,”
says Julie Olson, the foundation’s executive director. “We already have
commitments from people to provide funds. I made my first deposit on
December 30, and in February or March we will begin accepting our first
grant applications.”
According to Olson, the foundation’s mission is to enhance the lives of
women and children in coffee-producing communities around the world.
“We do this by providing grants to worthy programs and projects in
coffee-producing countries,” she says, adding that the women coffee
growers will write the grant proposals themselves. “One of the exciting
things is that the projects and programs are generated based on their
needs in their communities. We work within the existing socioeconomic
structure to help them, but they decide between themselves what type of
projects they need funding for.”
Olson says the foundation hopes to begin endowing grants in the first
quarter of this year to communities in the coffee-growing areas of
Peru. “The abuse rate there is horrific, so we want to start providing
funds to help them as soon as possible.”
The foundation had also planned to apply the Café Femenino model to
coffee-producing communities in Sumatra, where women’s rights are
equally bleak, but the tsunami disaster presented more immediate and
urgent needs. “A grower’s co-op in Aceh was heavily hit—several farmers
died and many children were lost,” Olson says. “So we have been working
to provide relief.”
Long-term, Olson says the foundation would like to assist many other
coffee communities around the world. “I think the issues we’re dealing
with in coffee communities are not limited to Peru or Sumatra,” she
says. “We hope to be able to provide grants to any coffee-producing
community in the world that has legitimate needs.”
Smith says her dream is that the foundation could help establish a
crisis center in each coffee-producing community. Her vision is to
provide leadership training to women so that they can help other women
and learn to generate alternative income for their families. At the
same time, she would like to provide spiritual healing for women who
have endured years of abuse.
To help ensure transparency and reliability, part of the foundation’s
mission will involve regular trips to the communities seeking
assistance, and members of the organization’s board already have plans
to travel to Peru this summer with Garth and Gay Smith and several of
their roaster customers. “I expect that to be an ongoing part of what
we do,” says Olson. “We have a responsibility to ensure that the funds
are spent appropriately. We want to make sure that the money gets to
the right people in these countries.”
So far, Olson says most of the financial commitments have come from
roasters and retailers, but she expects the support base to gradually
expand beyond the coffee industry. “Because of the humans rights issues
being addressed, I think it will have a broader appeal in the long
term. But it gives me goose bumps to think about the phenomenal
response we’ve had so quickly.”
The Road Ahead
Based on the initial response to Café Femenino, Marshall and Wirth both
plan to support the project on an ongoing basis. “Given the volume
we’re selling, I anticipate that we’ll be purchasing even more than we
might have initially thought,” says Marshall.
Likewise, Wirth expects his company’s stake in the project to grow
dramatically, adding that he is committed to investing in the education
and marketing necessary to make this coffee a top seller. “We don’t
pick up a product without making a serious long-term commitment,” he
says. “You can’t spend the kind of money we’re spending without having
a long view.”
Now that she has been able to gauge the industry’s interest, Smith
plans to purchase more Café Femenino coffee and get additional women
growers involved. “Not knowing what the market reception would be, we
only ordered three containers, but I’m not sure we’ll get through the
needs of everyone this year,” she says, adding that as more women
growers transition their crops to organic, they will become involved in
the project. “Next year we will have more coffee available, probably
about six containers. It’s a step-by-step process.”
Ultimately, Smith believes the work of Café Femenino is endless and
that by applying the model around the world, the coffee industry will
become stronger as a whole. “We believe that if we begin to empower
women throughout these countries, we will see a change in coffee
prices, and a change in economies,” she says. “We want to make the
industry aware of what a huge problem the abuse of women is. Once they
understand, I know we can effect tremendous change.”
Karen Foley is a freelance writer and editor in Portland, Ore. She can be reached at
.
Gaylene Smith isn’t afraid to take a leap of faith. In fact, that kind of daring is
precisely what inspired the creation of Café Femenino, an ambitious
project created last year to connect and empower female coffee growers
in origin countries that have traditionally offered few rights to
women. For more than a decade, Smith, co-owner of Organic Products
Trading Co. (OPTCO) in Vancouver, Wash., has been importing coffee from
co-ops in remote areas of northern Peru, a country where a shocking
number of women suffer from daily oppression and physical or emotional
abuse.
Organizing
the women seemed like the logical fist step, so in partnership with
PROASSA, the local exporter; CICAP, a Peru-based NGO; and CECANOR, the
2,500-member co-op with which OPTCO worked, the female coffee growers
decided to gather as a group to share their experiences and brainstorm
about how to improve their lives. In 2003, the women convened for the
first time, and out of that meeting came the idea to separate their
coffee from the rest of CECANOR’s production. Smith vividly recalls the
women approaching OPTCO to help sell the coffee. “My heart said, ‘It’s
my job to do this,’” she says. “I just knew it was a responsibility I
was supposed to take on.” 
In
September of 2004, the farmers gathered for their second annual
meeting, and this time, they invited Smith to speak to the group.
Again, Smith took a leap of faith. “I did not have a clue what I was
supposed to say,” she recalls. “But faith told me that the words would
be given to me and therefore I did not have to worry about it. Then, on
our family vacation in the first part of August, I woke up one morning
and the speech was in my head. I got up, asked for a pen and paper, and
wrote the words down.”