Four ways Fairtrade makes a difference

Eliezer Reis Jorge has been a Fairtrade coffee farmer in Brazil for 20 years. He says that the biggest challenge facing coffee farmers today is climate change. But with the support of Fairtrade, the Costas Co-operative / Boa Esperança he is part of is introducing projects to reduce the impacts of the changing climate.

He says, “We’ve had several environmental projects funded by the [Fairtrade] Premium. The co-operative, through the premium, has its own nursery [of native trees]. We do a mapping of the species that are at risk of extinction…[and] several springs have recovered.”

Linner is a Fairtrade tea farmer in Kenya and is a member of the Fintea Union co-operative.

As a widowed mother of two, Linner is no stranger to hardship. But through projects like the Gender Action Line and Tea project, which are funded by the Fairtrade Premium, she has been able to participate in financial management training. Linner has also begun dairy farming and beekeeping as alternative sources of income.

She says, “Before Fairtrade came in, my life was not easy. I used to live in poverty. I could not manage to save the little money I had just because I had no knowledge about financial management. It even reached a time when I had no money and borrowed twenty shillings.”