A Cafecito Story - Hardcover

Julia Alvarez has bridged the Americas many times. Born in New York and raised in the Dominican Republic, she is a poet, fiction writer, and essayist, author of world-renowned books in each of the genres, including How the Garc­a Girls Lost their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, and Something to Declare. She lives on a farmstead outside Middlebury, Vermont, with her husband Bill Eichner. Visit Julia's Web site www.alvarezjulia.com to find out more about her writing.
Julia and Bill own an organic coffee farm called Alta Gracia in her native country of the Dominican Republic. Their specialty coffee is grown high in the mountains on what was once depleted pastureland. Not only do they grow coffee at Alta Gracia, but they also work to bring social, environmental, spiritual, and political change for the families who work on their farm. They use the traditional methods of shad-grown coffee farming in order to protect the environment, they pay their farmers a fair and living wage, and they have a school on their farm where children and adults learn to read and write. For more information about Alta Gracia, visit www.cafealtagracia.com.

Belkis Ram­rez, who created the woodcuts for A Cafecito Story, is one of the most celebrated artrists in the Dominican Republic. Visit Belkis' web site.

A Better Coffee:
Developing Economic Fairness
Julia Alvarez's moving Cafecito Story is happily not just a story; it is now the living reality of half a million family coffee farmers around the world. These farmers and their partners in the marketplace--people that include Carmen, Miguel, Joe, and you, yourself--have turned decades of hard work and dreams into a powerful international movement called fair trade. Fair trade is about transforming the growing and drinking of coffee.
Fair trade is efficient and profitable trade organized with a built-in commitment to equity, dignity, respect, and mutual aid. Fair trade guarantees farmers like Carmen and Miguel

direct sales for their cooperatives,

a fair price, regardless of international market prices,

improved access to credit,

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a long-term marketing relationship, and

a commitment from buyers to support environmental sustainability.

We all want to end the human misery we hear about daily, but many of us find it hard to figure out what we can do personally. Fair trade helps us make a difference. It is a concrete step toward positive change. Buying fair-trade coffee gives you a delicious cafecito and the deeper satisfaction of knowing that you have helped farmers invest in health care, education, environmental stewardship, and economic independence.
And fair trade ensures that farmers earn a living wage so they can have the stability to provide a better future for themselves and their children. Helping farmers cultivate the courage to pursue their dreams helps us nurture the courage to pursue our own. Now isn't that a fair trade?