Trade Aid's 2007 education tour to Ethiopia, resulted in the following interview with Kebele and Elema; two elders of the Negele Gorbitu Co-operative in the Abaya district. Negele Gorbitu produces high quality Yirgacheffe Coffee - found in the red pack at Trade Aid shops.

Kebele and Elema answered all our questions about the difference between being part of a co-operative and being an individual farmer struggling to get the best price from traders through the auctions.

Kebele and Elema

“When we sell coffee to the auction we only get the first payment and it stops there but when we sell it to the Union there are many advantages. One of these is that our children get access to the school in the village whereas before they had to travel long distances to study and this has meant many more children now go to school. We see this as the most important advantage of selling to the union.”

In addition they told us that Co-op members now own 2 processing stations which means instead of selling the excess coffee unprocessed to traders they are now able to process all the coffee to the highest quality and receive the highest price for it.

What do the coffee farmers see for their children especially now that they are receiving an education?

Adunya - a student in the local primary school enjoys studying social studies and science the best.

“There has been little change between our own lifestyles and our forefathers’ but now that we are almost 100% dependant on coffee because of larger populations and a shortage of land, the future needs to change. We need to get higher prices for our coffee, but also it is necessary to send our children to school and not just primary school but high school too, where now the nearest high school is far away. We would like communication infrastructure, hospitals and high schools in our locality. We want to teach our children to be employed in other sectors other than farming because even if they want to be farmers there is no land.”

On asking how they thought they may achieve this, higher prices were mentioned but they also acknowledged that more was needed:

“Even with the higher prices for coffee, there is still very little coffee per family so there will still be not enough. Gradually through fair trade the premium we receive will increase and things will start to happen. The primary school is a start and each year we upgrade, adding new classes. There is a plan to upgrade to 10th grade whereas at the moment the school only goes to 6th grade".

As a final comment we asked both Kebele and Elema this question: "If someone was standing in front of a shelf of coffee in the supermarket, and if they were standing there while the consumer was choosing their coffee, what would they say to that consumer?" They told us:

“When we sell through the free market, it only develops the investment of the individual processors and suppliers, the farmers cannot get anything from it, not infrastructure or other benefits, so we ask the consumers and the roasters to drink fair trade coffee that is sold to the co-operative union because it is invested in the locality to build social infrastructure - schools, potable water, clinics etc and this is why the consumer should choose to support coffee sold through Trade Aid.”