Café Popular is working to bridge the gap between coffee farmers and consumers.

Even with fair trade coffee, many coffee farmers are not earning a living wage. Of that $10 or $15 a pound you pay for coffee, from 80 cents to $1.40 a pound goes to the farmer. In places such as rural Oaxaca state in Mexico, the countryside is being depopulated as huge numbers of people emigrate; often leaving communities full of only elders and children. 

The problem? So many middlemen along the way; as many as 16 increases in price from the farmer to you.

For more information on this issue, you can listen to this BBC report: The Cost of Coffee.

The goals of Café Popular are:

• to work directly and support coffee farmers, co-operatives and coffee growing communities,

• to sell excellent quality organically grown coffee,

• to support community initiatives in coffee growing areas to diversify their economies, and

• to support agriculture and production which is environmentally sustainable.

More information on Café Popular and how you can help will be coming soon.