Adipsa
A partnership between ADIPSA and Inforpress Centroamericana, Café Transparencia seeks to develop in Guatemala a coffee market based on justice and solidarity
An Excellent Coffee.grown in an area designated for agricultural use in the Sierra de las Minas National Reserve, using organic techniques which help environmental conservation and serve to produce an excellent coffee with an exquisite aroma. A Fair Price.is paid by consumers who express their support for a fairer distribution of profits amongst small producers and in return, receive a superior quality coffee Cultivating new ways of thinking.We believe that the future of small producers rests on the their ability to cut out middlemen in the coffee supply chain in order to increase their share of the profits and actively participate in the development process of their communities. This project allows ADIPSA's small producers to earn a fair and stable price for their coffee Help us promote justice and solidarity in the Guatemalan coffee market. To order your Café Transparencia, click here |
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An innovative project
At ADIPSA we feel that the lack of transparency in trade, politics and society in general is a major problem in Guatemala.
We believe that consumers who are well informed of the distribution of profits generated by trade could consider that a product traded fairly has added value and could identify with effort to give producers a greater share of the profits generated by trade.
An important part of the Café Transparencia project is to make profit distribution in the coffee supply chain transparent. We achieve this by the labels printed on our coffee which show a pie chart representing profit distribution, thereby stimulating a sense of trade justice in Guatemala. (Fair trade initiatives have generally been developed abroad and so far there has been no real effort to raise awareness of the need to promote trade justice inside Guatemala)
At ADIPSA, we realise we must confront the market and look for solutions there to the many problems facing small producers. At the same time, we are conscious of the fact that the skewed wage distribution of the current economic system means that certain groups are able to distort prices in favour of financial and commercial intermediaries. Our Café Transparencia project aims to break this model by allowing our small producers to earn a decent living, without compromising our critique of the current economic model. We aim to achieve this by working in five different areas: assuring quality, adding value to our produce, cutting out middlemen, exploring new markets, and, most importantly, building up an economy of scale by working together and in partnerships.
ADIPSA and Inforpress
We are privileged to work on this project in coordination with Inforpress, a company which has a focus on sustainability and has carried out studies of markets, community organisations and cooperation.
Our relationship with Inforpress is innovative since it unites a private company and a community organisation with the aim of developing fair and sustainable trade.
AchievementsWe have directly contributed to the income of small coffee producers during a crisis period. Our Café Transparencia project has worked with 12 small coffee producers, who have benefited directly from a 50% rise in income. The project has also stabilised prices for participating producers. Although prices have improved in the 2004/5 coffee year, when compared with 2002 when we began the Café Transparencia project, the outlook on the world coffee market is that prices will tend to decline. Besides the 12 participating coffee producers, ADIPSA has benefited as a whole from the project: we receive a percentage of the profits from the sales of Café Transparencia, which helps us strengthen ADIPSA as an organisation. Another important achievement of this project is that it breaks with the pattern of requesting funds to achieve results, helping us mover towards self-sufficiency as a producer organisation. This project has succeeded in launching on the market a high-quality coffee, produced using beans grown by our small producers, and processed and distributed in such a way that these producers have a grater share of the profits. And so, Café Transparencia breaks with the conventional trade in Guatemala. Whilst it is more difficult to judge the reaction of consumers, the fact that sales of Café Transparencia have grown significantly every year since our launch in 2002 suggests that more and more people are finding in our project a way to express their concern for trade justice and their solidarity with small producers. |
Help us promote justice and solidarity in the Guatemalan coffee market.To order your Café Transparencia, click here |
