Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Liz Waid.
Voice 2
And I'm Joshua Leo. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
People all around the world enjoy drinking coffee. It is one of the largest businesses in the world. The coffee industry makes billions of dollars every year. There are hundreds of thousands of coffee stores around the world. But there is a problem with the coffee industry. Many of the farmers who grow the coffee beans do not get paid enough money. Today's Spotlight is on this problem, and two companies who are working to change this.
Voice 2
To make money, farmers must sell their coffee to coffee buyers. These buyers sell the coffee to coffee companies. But often, coffee buyers purchase the coffee from the farmers and sell it for a much higher price. The buyers do not pay the farmers enough money. And the farmers can not control the price of coffee. Often, if the farmers do not sell the coffee to the buyer, there is no other way to sell it. Farmers are forced to sell their coffee at low prices.
Voice 1
But there is a movement to help these farmers - the fair trade movement. Companies buy the coffee directly from the farmers. With the farmers, they set a fair price. Fair trade helps farmers feed their families, care for their homes, and grow their businesses.
Voice 2
One of these coffee companies is Stumptown. They have eight stores in the United States. Duane Sorensen is the owner of Stumptown. Stumptown buys directly from coffee cooperative groups in many countries. And they work with these groups to improve the quality of coffee. This also helps the farmers sell the coffee for more money.
Voice 1
In 2006, Sorenson visited coffee farmers in Rwanda. These farmers were part of the Karaba Coffee Cooperative. The farmers grow a very special kind of coffee. It tastes very good, but it is difficult to grow. Sorensen wanted to buy this coffee. But he also wanted to work with the farmers. So he asked them how he could help them to improve the coffee.
Voice 2
The farmers explained their need - a two wheeled bicycle. They grew coffee on high hills. But the processing center was in the valley. To sell their coffee, they had to bring it down the hills on bad roads to this center. And this created a problem.
Voice 1
The small coffee beans grow inside a cherry, a kind of fruit. If the coffee beans are not processed quickly, they go bad. They do not taste as good. If the farmers could take the coffee beans to the processing center faster, the beans would not go bad.
Voice 2
Researchers say that there are around 500,000 coffee farmers in Rwanda. Forty to fifty percent of the population depends on the coffee industry. And transportation is an important part of this. Many of the farmers in Rwanda carry the bags of coffee on their heads. They walk on rough roads down tall hills. This takes a lot of work, a lot of energy, and a lot of time.
Voice 1
So after speaking with farmers, Duane Sorensen went back to the United States. He started the organization "Bikes to Rwanda". He created the organization to provide cargo bicycles to coffee farmers. These cargo bicycles had special areas on the back to carry large bags of coffee. The bicycles were very strong. They could carry many bags of coffee.
Voice 2
So workers from Bikes to Rwanda took some new bicycles to the farmers. They asked the farmers if the bicycles would work on the rough roads. The coffee farmers were happy with these bicycles. These bicycles would help very much. So Bikes to Rwanda purchased four hundred cargo bicycles.
Voice 1
But the organization did not give these bicycles to the farmers for free. They sold the bicycles to the farmers for a low price. The farmers could pay small amounts of money over time to buy the bicycles. The organization did this to encourage the farmers to value and care for the bicycles.
Voice 2
The farmers started using the bicycles. They made more money because they could carry the coffee to the processing center more quickly. And when the farmers were not carrying coffee, they used the bicycles to carry things for their family and friends. Bikes to Rwanda also taught local people to repair and improve the bicycles. This means that the farmers can use these bicycles for many years to come.
Voice 1
Every day people purchase cups of coffee at Stumptown. And part of that money goes to Bikes to Rwanda. This is similar to the work of another coffee company. Pura Vida Coffee Company processes and sells coffee. Their goal is to "create good" through their coffee business. They want to show that businesses and aid groups can work together. In this way, they can help more people. Their name, "Pura Vida", means pure life in Spanish.
Voice 2
Pura Vida Coffee Company sells only fair trade coffee. But the company also operate programs to improve coffee growing communities. Pura Vida Coffee Company works with coffee farmers in Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Sumatra. In some of these areas, there are thousands of coffee farmers being helped by the company.
Voice 1
In Nicaragua, Pura Vida helped a community of 161 families. The community did not have clean water. Pura Vida helped dig wells, buy water pumps, and build water cleaning systems. The children in the community now get sick less, and the families do not have to worry about dirty water. This makes the community stronger. And a strong community helps make the coffee business stronger.
Voice 2
Both Pura Vida and Stumptown know that making money and helping people do not have to happen separately. Businesses can make people's lives better. Fair trade coffee helps farmers all around the world. But companies like Stumptown and Pura Vida have made things even better. They work to help whole communities.
Voice 1
Clara Seasholtz works for Bikes to Rwanda. She explains the business like this:
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"Coffee, for these people, is their way out of poverty. This was a way to extend that full circle idea of connecting the buyer with the farmer. We provide the best quality coffee and pay high prices for it to better the lives of those people that are producing it. We provide them with things that they can use and be happy about and they are providing us with really good coffee."
Voice 2
Drinking coffee is a pleasant activity for people all over the world. But it is also the path to a better life for many farmers. For these farmers, coffee is creating good.
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