It is a cooperative, based on the micro-credit paradigm and faith-based principles, which has emerged since as an extraordinary model of people working together across borders.
Under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Frontera de Cristo Border Ministries, Daniel Cifuentes (a former coffee farmer working in Agua Prieta, Mexico), Tommy Bassett (a former maquila manager and co-author of the new book Just Coffee: Caffeine with a Conscience), and Mark Adams, Just Coffee co-author, sprouted an economic plan with coffee growers in Chiapas, Mexico.
Straddled between the Douglas, Ariz., and Agua Prieta, Mexico, border in the southeastern region of the Sonoran Desert, muros (walls) are being built by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop the migration of men, women, and children from Latin America.
Along Border Road, a dusty washboard that snakes up hills and around rock formations parallel to Mexico’s train tracks, the construction of steel fencing, vehicle barriers, stadium lighting, infrared cameras, and motion detectors seems strange considering the relationship between the two friendly nations. However, these obstacles only push the flow of migration into more remote and hostile regions.
Mark Adams, U.S. coordinator and pastor for the bi-national Presbyterian Program, Frontera de Cristo, in Douglas, Ariz., says, none of these provisions address the root causes of the immigration problem: poverty.
Adams is a tall, 37-year-old man from Clover, S. C. In his southern twang, he says “At one time, I was one of two people in Clover who spoke Spanish — me and the Spanish teacher. Now there is a host of Latin American families residing there.”
At his office in Douglas, an old bungalow with grey-green trim on a residential street, he serves up coffee, but not just any coffee, “It’s coffee with a conscience.” The roasted aroma of Arabica beans, cultivated from Chiapas, Mexico, hang in the air. The furnishings are spare save for the mission-style dining room table where he conducts business. The wooden table is covered in a Mexican blanket with bands of bold red, yellow, green and blue. Adams, with his broad smile, speaks about the events that have since transpired into Just Coffee and Just Trade.
Ironically, the notion of Just Coffee began in a coffee shop in Loveland, Colo., at his regular Tuesday morning breakfast club. There at breakfast, “I talked about an incident that occurred along the border, when the men at the table told me, ‘You’ve got to do something,’” Adams says.
Adams understood his mission, borrowing the micro-credit model dating as far back as the signing of the Marshall Plan, but becoming widely popularized by Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank, both Nobel Laureates, for their social and economic developments in Bangladesh and beyond.
“Just Coffee is focusing on the direct causes of economic migration into the U.S. We are sure that providing economic incentives to remain on cherished homelands with friends and loved ones will prove much more humane and effective than all the fences, cameras, and agents. Why move if there are opportunities and the potential for financial success and family satisfaction at home?” Adams comments.
The Just Coffee cooperative and Frontera de Cristo developed a model in which the value of roasting, packing, and sales is added to the coffee produced by the coffee community of Salvador-Urbina in Chiapas. According to their Web site, “This value rises to about 400% of the value of the green product paid by fair trade intermediaries … and ten times that paid to the vast majority of small producers in the conventional market. All the profits remain within Mexico to contribute to the growth of the cooperative and to economic development.”
The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs indicated that by 2005, 3 percent of the world’s population (191 million) lived in a country other than the one in which they were born. A third had moved from a developing country to one that is developed; a third moving from one developing nation to another; and another third originating in the developed world.
With North America hosting more than 45 million migrants as of 2005, other countries like Spain, Italy, and Portugal, have somewhat embraced the migrants, while many other countries have created paths to legalization. However, in the United States, with the divisive polarization among Americans regarding the estimated 12 million Latin Americans living in the country illegally, Just Coffee has lessened the impact of poverty in Salvador-Urbina and in other parts of the world.
”Surprisingly, the organization has fueled the economy of the small coffee village,” Adams admits, “which has had a positive effect on the quality of life as well as the sense of dignity and justice prevalent in the families involved.” There is now potable water, cell phone coverage, education for the children, and basic necessities that were, otherwise, nonexistent.
In contrast to the situation with of Just Coffee, a report published by the United States Department of Agriculture on the success of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) indicates, “Economic transition away from agriculture is inevitable for many small-scale agricultural producers. Future policies should focus on generating off-farm employment, … improving trade opportunities for the 15 percent of Mexico’s producers who are globally competitive and improving the productivity of the 35 percent who have the potential to compete.”
While the migration from Latin America continues, despite the billions of dollars to secure the border, small villages that were self-sustaining through centuries of hard labor from tilling the soil, now find themselves without opportunities to compete in the global empire. Villagers are desperate to feed their children, and with the growing numbers of impoverished people in Mexico and further south, Just Coffee offers a just solution to the inequities among the haves and have nots.
Just Coffee has expanded its operations with Just Trade, creating other coffee cooperatives in Veracruz, Mexico; Nayarit, Mexico; and Haiti, replicating the micro-credit model.
Rick Ufford-Chase, moderator of the 216th General Assembly, PC(USA), says “Mark Adams and Tommy Bassett, along with their Café Justo colleagues from Mexico, tell a compelling story about forging a global community to match the global economy. This book is a fascinating primer in how to respond proactively to global economic forces that leave most of us feeling totally powerless. This book is for those who know that Jesus calls us to create the reign of God right here on earth, right now.”
To read more about Just Coffee: Caffeine with a Conscience by Mark Adams and Tommy Bassett go to https://www.fronteradecristo.org. To order a bag of the roasted coffee, go to https://www.justcoffee.org.
Jody Ipsen is a volunteer activist and writer on border and immigration issues living in Tucson, Ariz.
