WVU Student Group Developes Micro-loan Fund by Selling Fair-Trade Coffee

Fair Trade 2.0 is a student led group on WVU's campus that's working with a coffee cooperative in the nation of Nicaragua. The group's goal is to ensure that farming organizations receive a suitable prices for the coffee they grow.

"We've connected with one community of farmers who do grow coffee for the fair trade market and are trying to work with them and support them in a range of different ways to improve income and liveliness," Geography professor Bradley Wilson said. Students involved with Fair Trade 2.0 are partnering with a coffee cooperative called "La Hermandad" in Nicaragua, which means brotherhood or sisterhood in Spanish.

"La Hermandad" is an organization made up more than 100 people in the community of San Ramon. Professor Bradley Wilson has been working with La Hermandad members since 2005. He says, farmers don't make enough money from the coffee they produce, and that isn't fair trade.

"For farmers in Nicaragua, coffee is a livelihood, it's a means for living. Coffee as we know, you can't live by Coffee alone. They need to find other ways to earn money as well, so we're providing a small loan to do that."

The group has used a $1,000 micro-loan to purchase coffee picked by La Hermandad members. Students turned around and then sold about 100 pounds of coffee. The money made was used to create a low-cost credit fund to buy dairy cows, hens for eggs, and other farm supplies.

"This is a way in which students can do more by doing a direct investment, actually in the lives of farming communities in Nicaragua and elsewhere," Bradley said. Senior Amanda Rivera says her work with Fair trade 2.0 is making her understand the struggles many of these farmers face.

"I have more of a prospective of what people go through day-to-day just to support themselves, how people are living in different places in the world," she said. Fair Trade 2.0 plans to continue raising funds and selling coffee for its Café con Leche Campaign in the spring.

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Coffee Party of Canada proposes better way to spend coffee break

The mythical “Tim Hortons voters” of Canada now have a political movement to call their own — the Coffee Party of Canada, for those who want better service from their governments and big business. It’s not a Tea Party movement, nor is it affiliated with the U.S version of the Coffee Party.

In fact, this Coffee Party is not a political party at all — it’s an offshoot of Democracy Watch, a long-time Ottawa ethics advocacy group led by Duff Conacher. “If Canadians spent as much time writing politicians about their concerns as they spend lining up to buy coffee, we would have the good, democratic governments and responsible big businesses we want,” the Coffee Party declared in its debut news release Thursday.

Conacher says the Coffee Party, to be launched Friday, will be composed of citizens who want to make “governments and big businesses operate more honestly, ethically, openly, representatively, efficiently and effectively.”

The Canadian version of the Coffee Party wants voters simply to use their coffee breaks to press for more accountability from governments and business.

“So please gather a few friends together, make or buy some coffee, and no matter what problem concerns, you help make Canadian governments and corporations solve your problem by writing letters, printing out the “I’m Voting for Good Government” sticker, donating and telling everyone you know about CoffeeParty.ca,” the news release states.

This new movement comes just as the issue of corporate tax cuts — and the issue of corporate privilege overall — is shaping up to be a major issue in any future election campaign.

Pollster Nik Nanos says corporations may be emerging as a target of public antipathy because of high-profile failures in recent years that have resulted in economic chaos, unemployment and lost pensions, on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

“Things like Enron, the demise of Nortel and the banking crisis have severely undermined the confidence that many Canadians have in big business,” Nanos says.

“In terms of the cuts to corporate taxes, a key factor is that the greater the proximity of a political initiative to the everyday lives of Canadians the more likely it can move the numbers. Personal income tax relief can move numbers — corporate tax relief is once removed for most Canadians and therefore has less of a direct impact.”

As well, since the banning of corporate donations to political parties, federal politicians may now feel freer to be less cozy with big business. On Wednesday, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff described big corporations — once a large source of Liberal donations — as the “richest and most powerful” interests in the country, at odds with the interests of Canadian families.

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Fairtrade coffee producers face challenge of climate change

The Fairtrade Foundation is hoping that new links between British retailers and small farmers can help tackle the impact of climate change on supplies of some of the world's tastiest coffee.

In the past year, coffee prices have soared to an all-time high as production of the most aromatic and widely used type of bean, arabica, has suffered from unusual weather conditions worldwide.

Toby Quantrill, head of public policy for the foundation, which aims to guarantee a fair price for farmers in developing countries, said: "We are very concerned. The small-scale and poorer farmers we work with are the most vulnerable, and they need support."

The organisation wants to act as a broker between retailers, which can buy carbon credits as a way of offsetting their energy use, and small farmers who can create credits to earn money by planting trees or using more environmentally friendly ways to light or heat their homes.

Fairtrade's move comes amid increasing concern among coffee buyers, particularly those working with small-scale farmers, about the security of supply. They fear not merely disappointment for those who enjoy their caffeine hit with a little more flavour and fragrance, but a global disaster for the coffee industry.

Andrea Olivar at Twin Trading, which buys Fairtrade-approved coffee for supermarkets including Sainsbury's, as well as specialist labels such as Traidcraft and Equal Exchange, said: "If roasters and supermarkets want to continue buying good-quality coffee, with all the changes in the climate, it could get difficult in future. The high-quality arabica bean only grows in specific conditions."

The problem is already apparent to coffee farmers in the Mbale region of Uganda, on the slopes of Mount Elgon, where it is feared that production of arabica beans could cease in the next decade. They are experiencing unprecedented levels of pests and disease, and struggling to deal with unpredictable weather conditions that are dramatically affecting coffee production.

The bean flourishes at 18-23C (64-73F), and in Mbale temperatures appear to be rising – a view held by local farmers and backed up by a recent study by Oxfam.

Willington Wamayeye, managing director of the Gumutindo Fairtrade coffee co-operative in Mbale, which buys from about 6,000 farmers in the region, said: "When temperatures rise we have a humid environment and it enables diseases and pests to grow, and we have unprecedented levels of pest attack of the coffee. In the past it was manageable – now it's running out of control and you can see a whole garden of plants drying up. It's like an epidemic."

He said 80% of coffee trees were now affected by pests compared with about 10% three or four years ago. In the past a coffee tree used to produce an average 2kg of beans a year but now farmers are barely collecting 0.5kg a tree. Quality is also being affected.

While politicians stall on action to tackle climate change, Ugandan farmers are already being forced to deal with the daily reality of higher temperatures, drought and ill-timed or extreme rainfall. Wamayeye said: "The rivers I used to jump in when I was a small boy are completely dried up apart from when it rains heavily."

Heavy rains coupled with deforestation have also increased the incidence of landslides in the region, which can devastate farms and communities. In March last year, a school, a health centre and several farms were buried after torrential rain.

The fall in coffee production may be a less immediate problem but it does have implications for people in Uganda and beyond. As a lucrative cash crop, coffee is vital to smallholders in providing the money they need for medicines, daily household necessities such as soap and their children's school fees.

While coffee prices are high at the moment, amid increasing demand for high-quality Fairtrade organic coffee of the kind grown by the Gumutindo co-operative, farmers' income is under pressure because yields are falling.

Wamayeye says that, although his co-operative has taken on new farmers, this year he will not be able to meet demand: "I need to raise 40 containers of coffee. I have just fewer than 20 now and I think I will fall short by maybe 10 containers by the end of the season."

That reflects a wider problem in Uganda, where the government says exports of the lower-quality robusta coffee bean have also been hit. Between October and December, 692,485 bags of robusta coffee were shipped, down from 705,277 in the same quarter a year before.

The Fairtrade Foundation is not alone in its endeavours to improve the situation. Partly thanks to the National Assembly for Wales, Mbale is being used to pilot schemes that can help these farmers adapt to climate change.

A project orchestrated by the Welsh assembly is aiming to return Mbale's bare hillsides to the lushly forested slopes they once were. The Cardiff-based Waterloo Foundation, set up by David and Heather Stevens, co-founders of part of insurers Admiral Group, has given £150,000 over three years towards planting about 1m trees in Uganda.

The Waterloo Foundation project is seen as a pilot for a broader scheme, backed by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), to fund tree planting and other climate change adaptation initiatives. It has just secured $1m (£630,000) of funding for work in Mbale, one of 10 regions around the world that are expected to participate. After months of political wrangling, the UK's Department for International Development has put up £300,000 over three years, with the rest coming from Denmark's international development agency and the UNDP.

Meanwhile other smaller projects are forging ahead. Twin Trading is asking coffee roasters in the UK to pay a slightly higher price in order to guarantee the future of supply through climate change-related projects, including responsible livestock farming, tree-planting and fuel-efficient stoves. Its cow-sharing project is starting this month and it is hoping to find a retail or roaster partner to help it continue the work. It is encouraged by a deal in which Cadbury's, the British chocolate manufacturer acquired last year by the US group Kraft Foods, has committed to help cocoa farmers in Ghana adapt to climate change.

But, as Wamayeye says, the farmers can only help themselves so much: "What we can do, we are doing. We can plant trees. We can't stop people from driving or flying."

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'Hot cup of coffee warms the soul'

Montreal's homeless shelters managed to keep the city's most vulnerable residents safe during the past few nights when temperatures dropped into the minus 20s by stepping up patrols, extending their hours and setting up emergency-camp cots and mattresses in their facilities.

But the cold, frigid air that has gripped the city since Saturday and, according to Environment Canada, will only begin to relent today as a new weather system moves in from the Great Lakes bringing with it more seasonal temperatures, has left the vital social safety net facing a new problem.

The Old Brewery Mission and the Welcome Hall Mission, both emergency shelters and, St. Michael's Mission, a downtown day centre for the homeless, report they are facing coffee shortages resulting from the cold weather that has spiked demand for the soothing hot beverage by upward of 20 per cent.

So in addition to the basic items that help the homeless weather the winter -sleeping bags, gloves, tuques, ski pants and new underwear and socks -shelters are now asking the public for coffee donations, too.

"It helps to keep the guys steady and calm," said Matthew Pearce, director-general of the Old Brewery Mission, where a coffee-drop-box was brimming yesterday.

Although not a life-threatening problem, shelter officials said yesterday that their inability to offer one of life's simpler creature comforts - a good, hot cup of coffee -is an important issue for the homeless, many of whom are struggling to stay sober.

"Some of our guys do get a little bit of a rush with coffee, it's caffeine," said Cyril Morgan, director-general of the Welcome Hall Mission. "But really it's to warm up.

"In our society, having a hot cup of coffee warms the soul."

George Greene is a volunteer at St. Michael's Mission, a drop-in centre on President Kennedy Ave., which serves about 300 cups of coffee a day.

Greene said there were almost 100 people looking for a hot cup of coffee, lining up before the centre opened at 8 a.m. yesterday. "Our coffee situation is precarious."

A St. Michael's volunteer goes around to local food banks each month to collect coffee but this month, he said, supply ran out by mid-month, forcing the centre to purchase a cheaper substitute, tea.

Over at the Old Brewery Mission, Pearce said, staff have had to start watering down its coffee in order to stretch remaining supplies. About 2,000 cups of coffee a day are served by the mission across its various facilities for men and women,

For the past six years, the mission has received a huge donation -the equivalent of about 184,000 cups of coffee a year -from Van Houtte Inc. The Montreal-based coffee roaster stepped in 2005 when the cash-strapped mission was about to stop giving out free coffee in order to cut costs. At that time the coffee budget was $30,000 annually.

But that shipment from Van Houtte arrives in March and it has been drawn down to such a point, the coffee now being served at the Old Brewery Mission is being watered down, he said. "It doesn't supply a satisfying hit."

In addition, Pearce said, the mission has had to cut its 9 p.m. coffee break, a usually calming ritual for the men as they settle in for the night at the Webster Pavilion, a 237-bed emergency shelter on Clark Street. "It brings the place down," he said. "Hopefully we will be able to start it up again soon."

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Coffee Breaks Benefits Health, Makes People More Productive

Coffee breaks, according to the National Coffee Association, not only provide health benefits but also make people more productive during the work day. Today, the NCA celebrates its 100th anniversary. But for many of us, National Coffee Break Day is every day. The National Coffee Association asserts that coffee has been scientifically proven to have four times more antioxidants than green tea.

Furthermore, coffee has a significantly higher amount of soluble dietary fiber (even more than orange juice), can improve your mood, and help you better perform tasks that involve the use of memory and logical reasoning. So enjoy your coffee breaks today in celebration of NCA's National Coffee Break Day!

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Coffee and an aspirin 'best hangover cure' after all

Scientists have confirmed what millions have suspected for years if you want to soothe a tired head - simply take some caffeine and a painkiller. They found the caffeine in coffee and the anti-inflammatory ingredients of aspirin and other painkillers reacted against the chemical compounds of ethanol, or pure alcohol.

Ethanol brings on headaches thanks to a chemical acetate it can produce and even low doses can affect some people more than others, said the study. Professor Michael Oshinsky, of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, induced headaches in rats using small amounts of ethanol. He then gave them doses of caffeine and anti-inflammatories to find it blocked the acetate and relieved the headaches.

Prof Oshinsky told the journal New Scientist "none of the commonly cited causes of hangovers could have caused this response". The rats were not dehydrated either, going against an argument that coffee should not be used as a hangover cure because it just causes further dehydration.

The research will spark a new debate over just what is the best cure for a throbbing head after a night on the town. Some argue drinking water is better than a caffeinated drink because it rehydrates the body while others still swear by the restorative powers of a full English breakfast to redress the body's balance.

Others argue for a hair of the dog, in particular something including a fruit juice and a little bit of spice which is why a Bloody Mary is often cited as a popular choice. And some advise against using painkillers, particularly the stronger ones like aspirin and ibuprofen, as they can cause stomach upsets after a heavy night out.

This is because they give the liver work to do when it is already stretched trying to deal with all the alcohol from the previous evening, so the argument goes. Oshinsky's tests on rats left a 4-6 hour gap between giving them the alcohol and giving them the cure as this allowed time for the headaches to develop.

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Drinking coffee lowers diabetes risk by over 50%--study

Sipping hot cup of coffee not only helps kick start your mornings, but also lowers the risk of diabetes by more than half, a new study delving into the link between coffee and type 2 diabetes [Also called non-insulin dependent diabetes; a condition in which the pancreas produces so little insulin that the body cannot use the blood glucose as energy; can often be controlled through meal plans and physical activity plans, and diabetes pills or insulin.] suggests.

According to the study, published in current issue of the journal 'Diabetes,' women who drink three to four cups of coffee a day cut their risk of diabetes by 50 percent or more. Hitherto studies have shown that coffee offers a protective effect against type 2 diabetes [Also called non-insulin dependent diabetes; a condition in which the pancreas produces so little insulin that the body cannot use the blood glucose as energy; can often be controlled through meal plans and physical activity plans, and diabetes pills or insulin.] , but the real reason behind the effect was not known.

Now, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have discovered a possible molecular mechanism that might be responsible for preventing the metabolic condition.

A plausible explanation
Sex hormone–binding globulin (SHBG) is a type of glycoprotein that regulates the production of sex hormones [chemical substances created by the body that control numerous body functions.] , testosterone and estrogen which are believed to play a crucial role in triggering diabetes.

As per researchers, coffee consumption increases plasma [the watery, straw-colored fluid which carries the cellular elements of the blood through circulation] levels of sex hormone–binding globulin, thereby maintaining the insulin [a hormone produced by the pancreas. Insulin affects the amount of glucose absorbed by the liver.] levels required by the body in order to function properly.

Study details and findings
In order to assess the link between daily consumption of coffee and type 2 diabetes, study author Atsushi Goto, a doctoral student in epidemiology and Dr. Simin Liu, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at UCLA, conducted a study.

For the study, researchers examined 359 diabetes patients and 359 healthy controls of similar age and race selected from the database of nearly 400,000 women enrolled in a large scale Women's Health Study.

It was found that women who drank three to four cups of coffee regularly reported higher levels of sex hormone–binding globulin as compared to non-drinkers. In fact, the coffee sippers were 56 percent less likely to develop diabetes than non-drinkers, the study authors averred.

When the findings of the study were adjusted for the glycoprotein levels, it was noted that the protective effect of coffee disappeared. SHBG blood levels may hold the key to reducing risks for type 2 diabetes, said Dr. Simin Liu, director of the Center for Metabolic Disease Prevention at UCLA and study co-author.

Though the research gives new light to diabetes prevention in middle-aged women, health experts maintain that excess of everything is bad, and this is no different in case of caffeine.

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