If we want real change, we need to imagine a clear and bold image of the ideal coffee world - and work towards it.
In our eyes, the main issue in the coffee world is simple: as consumers, farmers and roasters, we don’t fully realise our power to create lasting change ourselves. Rather than a positive and powerful vision, there is a doomsday attitude about where the coffee world is headed, influenced by the media and dire reporting. This, to us is the biggest obstacle in creating change. What we need is to concretely imagine and draw out an equal coffee world, one where farmers and roasters are equally represented - and transparently work towards it. If we are true to our ideals in all our actions and the way we run our organisations, this vision will slowly manifest itself as reality.
Rather than believe labels and fall for fancy marketing, we must rediscover our common sense and our direct, human connection to everyone we buy from. Concretely, if we can’t see or don’t trust the source of our coffee, we just shouldn’t drink it. Eventually, we will attain a critical mass and poor farmers and degraded coffee lands will start to disappear. It sounds hard to imagine, but because we are showing that the alternative is real, it really is that simple.
The coffee world of tomorrow
farmers
earn an equal share of the industry’s profits. They make trade agreements directly and talk fluently with roasters and their customers and are fully responsible for social justice and ecology on their farms.
Facilitators
exist to transparently help farmers and roasters get in touch, solve logistics and gain access to finance. The stock market and trader models of old cannot defend their margins to the public, so disappears altogether.
coffee industry
becomes master at selling the actual, verifiable story of their own quality and that of the value chain they work with. High consumer scrutiny means excessive profits disappear and high ethics become the norm.
Consumers
are fully aware of their power to change the industry as the effects of transparent trade become become apparent. The only way to supply them is to show real commitment to quality and social / ecological justice.