Buying your coffee directly from the grower with CoffeeCSA makes so much sense, to so many people on so many levels.
Corporate Agriculture often accuses local food advocates of being ‘elitist’ in their approach, but who’s approach has the public in mind?
We introduced CoffeeCSA to our eNewsletter readers last issue in a brief article with the promise to do a follow-up once we had received our order and tasted it. After conducting extensive research- several enjoyable cups of incredible mochas, lattes and espressos- the time has come to do the actual writing!
CoffeeCSA is a new venture, launched in early April this year and has seen significant exposure in the press, with The New York Times, Huffington Post and RSF Social Finance all writing about them. Early response has been very positive as well. CSAs, or Community Supported Agriculture, has gained attention in the past few years with it’s fresh, locally produced food model that directly connects the consumer with the farmer that grew their food. There are many benefits to this model, as the eater gets to meet and usually get to know the producer; supply chains are non-existant with the consumer picking up their food directly from the grower; the grower can respond to consumer requests for different varieties rapidly; and the grower/farmer/producer gets paid up front and in full, not after everyone else has taken their profit.
This is all well and good, you say, but what exactly does this have to do with coffee? Lots.
Unfortunately, there aren’t any coffee growers in the United States, as coffee is strictly a tropical crop. That means that there aren’t any local growers to most of the world’s population, and coffee is a food that will always be shipped in. This is where CoffeeCSA shines as it is 100% grower owned, 100% of the profits go to the farmers, the coffee has all of the great labels- fair-trade, shade grown, organic, hand roasted, single origin, etc. etc. Pachamama is the parent organization with about 140,000 farmers making up it’s ownership worldwide, so it is in good hands.
The grower-owned model is beneficial for all involved, as it provides a higher quality, sustainable, traceable cup of coffee for the drinker and much
Peruvian Coffee Beans
more profits for the grower who is more able to remain in business providing that incredibly delicious cup of coffee we crave. Commercial commodity coffee growers make about $1.64 per pound of coffee and fair trade growers make around $2.18 per pound. CoffeeCSA growers get about $4.60 per pound from the sale of their own coffee, plus up to $3.60 per pound that comes from the cooperative profits. That’s double what fair trade certified growers get right from the start, with a significant amount more in profit sharing possible. All of this happens at a price that is usually quite a bit less than what you’d pay for similar quality coffee- around $9.99 per pound plus shipping.
The mechanics are similar to any other CSA. You go to CoffeeCSA.org, create your free membership, select how you want your coffee, buy it and wait for it to arrive at your door. The coffee is fresh roasted in Davis, CA and shipped soon after roasting so it is much fresher than that you are used to seeing in stores, even high-end ones that depend on traditional distribution channels after roasting. Some coffee is anywhere from a week to 10 days old before it even hits the shelves!
We ordered on a Thursday and received the coffee the next Monday by UPS where we live in Arizona. Upon opening the bag, I was surprised at how fresh and intense the aroma of the whole beans was. The primal scent of coffee was immediately there, closely followed by a rich earthy smell, then ending with chocolate. Now this was a great start!
Fresh Ground Coffee Beans
The next morning was the first tasting. This is a medium roast, so there isn’t much oil on the outside of the bean. After grinding for the espresso machine, I caught a strong floral scent in addition to the others from the day before. The charge tamped a bit easier than other coffees, and the flow of crema was very full from the portafilter. Poking my nose into the cup after the double shot was done was educational, as it was much more intense, fresh, clean and lively than what I’m used to smelling. I’m thinking that these qualities are due to the single, hand grown origin, hand roasting and overall freshness of the beans. It really seemed that there was a huge amount of care, attention and love that I was inhaling the aroma of!
After steaming the milk, the first sip was delightful. I had selected this variety grown by Belhermina Aguilar in Santa Teresa, Peru for its’ description- “This single-origin coffee is sweet & smooth with strong chocolate notes.” The description was dead accurate, with the addition of being delicious! The flavors of the bean melded well with the sweetness of the raw cane sugar and richness of the fresh milk.
We enjoy drinking coffee for its’ flavor, not as a necessity of the caffeine, so this is a real treat to find such a top quality coffee at this price that
Rich Crema
does so much good for everyone. The downside is that we now have much higher expectations when we go out for coffee, as we have rapidly become used to the superior flavors and aromas that hand-grown, harvested, selected and roasted coffee gives.
We will definitely be continuing with CoffeeCSA!
There have been a lot of ‘elitist’ accusations thrown around about just about anyone who is interested in learning more about the source of their food. We hear almost daily how ‘local food’, ‘organic growing’ and ‘sustainable methods’ won’t feed the world and we who are interested in any type of agriculture other than the status quo corporate chemical agriculture are choosing to starve the rest of the world.
To that end I present an article from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation. My comments will be at the end.
At the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting this year, Bob Stallman, the group’s president, lashed out at “self-appointed food elitists” who are “hell-bent on misleading consumers.” His target was the growing movement that calls for sustainable farming practices and questions the basic tenets of large-scale industrial agriculture in America.
The “elitist” epithet is a familiar line of attack. In the decade since my book “Fast Food Nation” was published, I’ve been called not only an elitist, but also a socialist, a communist and un-American. In 2009, the documentary “Food, Inc.,” directed by Robby Kenner, was described as “elitist foodie propaganda” by a prominent corporate lobbyist. Nutritionist Marion Nestle has been called a “food fascist,” while an attempt was recently made to cancel a university appearance by Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” who was accused of being an “anti-agricultural” elitist by a wealthy donor.
This name-calling is a form of misdirection, an attempt to evade a serious debate about U.S. agricultural policies. And it gets the elitism charge precisely backward. America’s current system of food production – overly centralized and industrialized, overly controlled by a handful of companies, overly reliant on monocultures, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, chemical additives, genetically modified organisms, factory farms, government subsidies and fossil fuels – is profoundly undemocratic. It is one more sign of how the few now rule the many. And it’s inflicting tremendous harm on American farmers, workers and consumers.
During the past 40 years, our food system has changed more than in the previous 40,000 years. Genetically modified corn and soybeans, cloned animals, McNuggets – none of these technological marvels existed in 1970. The concentrated economic power now prevalent in U.S. agriculture didn’t exist, either. For example, in 1970 the four largest meatpacking companies slaughtered about 21 percent of America’s cattle; today the four largest companies slaughter about 85 percent. The beef industry is more concentrated now than it was in 1906, when Upton Sinclair published “The Jungle” and criticized the unchecked power of the “Beef Trust.” The markets for pork, poultry, grain, farm chemicals and seeds have also become highly concentrated.
America’s ranchers and farmers are suffering from this lack of competition for their goods. In 1970, farmers received about 32 cents for every consumer dollar spent on food; today they get about 16 cents. The average farm household now earns about 87 percent of its income from non-farm sources.
While small farmers and their families have been forced to take second jobs just to stay on their land, wealthy farmers have received substantial help from the federal government. Between 1995 and 2009, about $250 billion in federal subsidies was given directly to American farmers – and about three-quarters of that money was given to the wealthiest 10 percent. Those are the farmers whom the Farm Bureau represents, the ones attacking “big government” and calling the sustainability movement elitist.
Food industry workers are also bearing the brunt of the system’s recent changes. During the 1970s, meatpackers were among America’s highest-paid industrial workers; today they are among the lowest paid. Thanks to the growth of fast-food chains, the wages of restaurant workers have fallen, too. The restaurant industry has long been the largest employer of minimum-wage workers. Since 1968, thanks in part to the industry’s lobbying efforts, the real value of the minimum wage has dropped by 29 percent.
Migrant farmworkers have been hit especially hard. They pick the fresh fruits and vegetables considered the foundation of a healthy diet, but they are hardly well-rewarded for their back-breaking labor. The wages of some migrants, adjusted for inflation, have dropped by more than 50 percent since the late 1970s. Many grape-pickers in California now earn less than their counterparts did a generation ago, when misery in the fields inspired Cesar Chavez to start the United Farm Workers Union.
While workers are earning less, consumers are paying for this industrial food system with their health. Young children, the poor and people of color are being harmed the most. During the past 40 years, the obesity rate among American preschoolers has doubled. Among children ages 6 to 11, it has tripled. Obesity has been linked to asthma, cancer, heart disease and diabetes, among other ailments. Two-thirds of American adults are obese or overweight, and economists from Cornell and Lehigh universities have estimated that obesity is now responsible for 17 percent of the nation’s annual medical costs, or roughly $168 billion.
African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic whites, and more likely to be poor. As upper-middle-class consumers increasingly seek out healthier foods, fast-food chains are targeting low-income minority communities – much like tobacco companies did when wealthy and well-educated people began to quit smoking.
Some aspects of today’s food movement do smack of elitism, and if left unchecked they could sideline the movement or make it irrelevant. Consider the expensive meals and obscure ingredients favored by a number of celebrity chefs, the snobbery that often oozes from restaurant connoisseurs, and the obsessive interest in exotic cooking techniques among a certain type of gourmand.
Those things may be irritating. But they generally don’t sicken or kill people. And our current industrial food system does.
Just last month, a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases found that nearly half of the beef, chicken, pork and turkey at supermarkets nationwide may be contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. About 80 percent of the antibiotics in the United States are currently given to livestock, simply to make the animals grow faster or to prevent them from becoming sick amid the terribly overcrowded conditions at factory farms. In addition to antibiotic-resistant germs, a wide variety of other pathogens are being spread by this centralized and industrialized system for producing meat.
Children under age 4 are the most vulnerable to food-borne pathogens and to pesticide residues in food. According to a report by Georgetown University and the Pew Charitable Trusts, the annual cost of food-borne illness in the United States is about $152 billion. That figure does not include the cost of the roughly 20,000 annual deaths from antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
One of the goals of the Farm Bureau Federation is to influence public opinion. In addition to denying the threat of global warming and attacking the legitimacy of federal environmental laws, the Farm Bureau recently created an entity called the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance to “enhance public trust in our food supply.” Backed by a long list of powerful trade groups, the alliance also plans to “serve as a resource to food companies” seeking to defend current agricultural practices.
But despite their talk of openness and trust, the giants of the food industry rarely engage in public debate with their critics. Instead they rely on well-paid surrogates – or they file lawsuits. In 1990, McDonald’s sued a small group called London Greenpeace for criticizing the chain’s food, starting a legal battle that lasted 15 years. In 1996, Texas cattlemen sued Oprah Winfrey for her assertion that mad cow disease might have come to the United States, and kept her in court for six years. Thirteen states passed “veggie libel laws” during the 1990s to facilitate similar lawsuits. Although the laws are unconstitutional, they remain on the books and serve their real purpose: to intimidate critics of industrial food.
In the same spirit of limiting public awareness, companies such as Monsanto and Dow Chemical have blocked the labeling of genetically modified foods, while the meatpacking industry has prevented the labeling of milk and meat from cloned animals. If genetic modification and cloning are such wonderful things, why aren’t companies eager to advertise the use of these revolutionary techniques?
The answer is that they don’t want people to think about what they’re eating. The survival of the current food system depends upon widespread ignorance of how it really operates. A Florida state senator recently introduced a bill making it a first-degree felony to take a photograph of any farm or processing plant – even from a public road – without the owner’s permission. Similar bills have been introduced in Minnesota and Iowa, with support from Monsanto.
The cheapness of today’s industrial food is an illusion, and the real cost is too high to pay. While the Farm Bureau Federation clings to an outdated mind-set, companies such as Wal-Mart, Danone, Kellogg’s, General Mills and Compass have invested in organic, sustainable production. Insurance companies such as Kaiser Permanente are opening farmers markets in low-income communities. Whole Foods is demanding fair labor practices, while Chipotle promotes the humane treatment of farm animals. Urban farms are being planted by visionaries such as Milwaukee’s Will Allen; the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is defending the rights of poor migrants; Restaurant Opportunities Centers United is fighting to improve the lives of food-service workers; and Alice Waters, Jamie Oliver and first lady Michelle Obama are pushing for healthier food in schools.
Calling these efforts elitist renders the word meaningless. The wealthy will always eat well. It is the poor and working people who need a new, sustainable food system more than anyone else. They live in the most polluted neighborhoods. They are exposed to the worst toxic chemicals on the job. They are sold the unhealthiest foods and can least afford the medical problems that result.
A food system based on poverty and exploitation will never be sustainable.
Eric Schlosser is the author of “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” and a co-producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary “Food, Inc.“
I find it really funny that the article opened with American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman’s accusation of local food advocates “hell-bent on misleading consumers”, when that is exactly what industrial, corporate agriculture is engaged in daily. The proof is in their advertising, with family farms, cozy, happy cows, strutting chickens and lush fields of green pastures. Where are the real photos of CAFO’s with animals standing in liquid excrement up to their hocks, in pens too small to turn around or even lay down in? It seems that the corporate agriculture world is increasingly under fire- rightfully so- for their methods of growing food and their lack of concern for the animals and their customers, with profit and shareholder returns as their main concerns.
Corporate misleading, misdirecting consumers and misstating facts seem to be a common response today to the growth of more localized, de-centralized food production. With food prices at all time highs, fuel prices rising, disruptive weather patterns damaging crops and food shortages becoming increasingly common, people are concerned about where their food comes from. Add to that the spate of food recalls, dangerously unhealthy food being openly sold to consumers and the increasingly apparent back-door partnerships between corporations and the regulatory or inspection agencies that are supposed to prevent exactly this type of behavior, and it is completely understandable why the common person is suspicious and questioning of their food supply. It also explains the tremendous growth of the more localized and de-centralized food production model, like Farmer’s Markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), farm shares and simply trading food with neighbors.
It is darkly interesting to see how far we have come in a generation or so- the past 40 to 50 years. Real income for many agriculture workers has dropped drastically, yet the cost of the food has risen just as significantly. Our food is less healthy and less nutritious than decades before, as is reported almost daily on food contamination and soil depletion. Corporate agriculture is very careful and effective to dampen any critics of the chemical food system while at the same time marginalizing the proponents of de-centralized food production.Perhaps this is why they are so surprised and threatened at the success of the local markets.
Something that is exciting to see is just how many people that are working on positive, beneficial changes to their own food supply that have a spillover effect to their neighbor, city and county. People are starting their own gardens, expanding their gardens and selling or trading the surplus, starting or joining Farmer’s Markets, CSAs and farm share programs. People getting to know each other, how they produce food, the safety, health, nutrition and flavors of that food creates a surprisingly strong and resilient community that forges its own unique and positive direction without wanting or needing government input, regulations or assistance.
At its’ heart, this is what corporate agriculture is afraid of- becoming unnecessary, unneeded and unwanted.
Coffee CSA- a Great Deal for Everyone
Buying your coffee directly from the grower with CoffeeCSA makes so much sense, to so many people on so many levels.
Who’s More ‘Elitist?’- Foodies or Corporate Agriculture?
Corporate Agriculture often accuses local food advocates of being ‘elitist’ in their approach, but who’s approach has the public in mind?