Blog 5

Some of My Favorite Things

Learning about fair trade and the speaker allowing us the opportunity to take the roles of the growers and buyers was an eye-opening experience and reminded me a lot of other agricultural products. The product does not change its price with the market and it only tends to go up and leaved the farmers out of the profit making that could help them better manage their farms and quality of product. There are many stages that coffee goes through to get to market, Figure 1.

(Figure 1) Stages of Coffee

We were able to see the process from the business parts to the family farm that is producing the coffee beans. I was interested in the old ways that they removed the parchment from the coffee beans, Figure 2. Coffee production is a lot older than I expected and it was very surprising to find out how it became a very lucrative product for this country.

(Figure 2 ) Removing the parchment covering over the coffee bean

I feel that we to often only see the end product but do not see how the food or product is actually grown and to see the farmers have changed from the ways that were hurting their ground and moving toward and effective and sustainable way of caring for their land to make a better product, Figure 3.

(Figure 3) new coffee berry development on the bush

At the end we were able to taste the product and purchase directly from the farm. I wish I could make more direct purchases when I buy other products.