The Buzz on Bringing Shade-Grown Coffee to Campus

Author: Caroline Stauffer

For many students, coffee is a key ingredient to surviving college. Between coffee purchased at The Grille and consumed at the dining halls, Middlebury College purchases thousands of pounds of coffee each year. Thus, it makes sense that an initiative to improve the environment and reduce poverty through coffee consumption would interest students.
This is exactly what Stephanie Dosch '05 is trying to do with her initiative to educate students about and increase the consumption of shade grown and/or Fair Trade Certified coffee on campus.
Shade grown coffee is naturally grown. Coffee grows best in the shade of trees in the rainforest. Since the 1970s, however, coffee has been grown in sunlight with the use of chemicals. Reverting back to shade growth ensures that fewer trees are cut down, thus preserving natural habitats. Many people agree that shade-grown coffee tastes better because the beans take longer to ripen and few or no chemicals are used. It also keeps pesticides and chemicals out of the Earth, resulting in healthier communities.
Fair Trade Certified Coffee guarantees that coffee is purchased from farmers at a minimum price of $1.26 per pound. It also forms cooperatives between farmers for maximum benefits and eliminates middlemen who take more money away from the farmers. Consumers can recognize Fair Trade Certified Coffee because of the certification label on the package.
To see how changing the growth and distribution of a single commodity such as coffee could make a significant impact, one only has to look at some figures concerning coffee consumption.
Approximately 25 million small farmers grow 70 percent of the world's coffee. Although Brazil leads the world in coffee production, followed by Vietnam, the bean is grown all over the world.
The United States is the world's largest buyer of coffee, and four American companies (Proctor and Gamble, Kraft, Sarah Lee and Nestle) together purchase half of the world's coffee.
Despite the popularity of coffee, the world market is in crisis. It has declined 70 percent since 1997. Small coffee farmers do not make a profit without the fair trade guarantee. According to Oxfam America, the average coffee farmer earns less than $3 a day, less than many Americans drop on a single purchase at Starbucks.
Dosch became interested in shade grown coffee during high school. Dosch has always had an interest in birds, and since one of the benefits of shade grown coffee is to preserve forests that provide home to birds as well as many other species, she pursued the growth of shade grown coffee in an extensive senior research project paper. She has even worked for the Northwestern Shade Coffee Company through the Seattle Audubon Society.
Along with Nathaniel Marcus '04, Dosch is pursuing an initiative to have shade-grown and/or fair trade coffee served in The Grille and eventually even in the dining halls at the College. At this point, Dosch is unsure of exactly what the initiative seeks to accomplish, but has several ideas. While The Grille sometimes serves fair trade and/or shade-grown coffee, Dosch would like to increase awareness of this kind of coffee and increase the amount that is served at The Grille, noting that more coffee is consumed at The Grille than in the dining halls. Like many companies, New England Coffee Company, which produces the coffee served in the dining halls, sells Fair Trade Certified coffee. Dosch has requested that the dining halls make serving this kind of coffee a priority but reports that Dining Services has stated that the demand for it must increase. Thus, other goals of the initiative include educating students about fair trade and/or shade-grown coffee to increase its demand.
Related to this initiative, Middlebury College Writer-in-Residence Julia Alvarez '71 co-owns CafÈ Alta Gracia, a 60-acre farm in her homeland of the Dominican Republic. The farm's goal is "to produce specialty coffee from used-up pasture land, using organic methods," according to www.cafealtagracia.com. The farm encourages other farmers to practice "old methods" of shade growing coffee. Before coffee is planted, shade and fruit trees that will protect and enrich the soil are planted, attracting birds and insects and sheltering the coffee plants without unnatural chemicals.
"I think it would be really cool to serve her coffee here," Dosch said.
A meeting is planned for 8 p.m. Thursday in Pearson's Lounge to further discuss goals for the coffee initiative on campus. All interested students are invited to attend.
"This project is something easy. No one has to stop drinking coffee and nothing is sacrificed. It makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways," Dosch said.