Most of our customers are aware of our commitment to ethical coffee and our relationship with Agros. One of the questions we are asked frequently is, “What does Agros do to create this change?” or (slightly summarized) “How does Agros work?.” Well, I wanted to take a second to share with you a quick glimpse of ethical coffee and Agros International.
Ethical Coffee and Agros
Agros.org states what they are on the front page in a nutshell:
“Agros International is committed to breaking the cycle of povery for rural families in Central America and Mexico by enabling landless communities to achieve land ownership and economic stability. Having learned that the root causes of poverty extend across communities and are passed down from generation to generation, the Agros development model is holistic, sustainable, and focused on long term results. This commitment to the long-term sustainability of a whole community serves to break the cycle of poverty in all its forms.”
By applying this same philosophy to sourcing coffee — we create ethical coffee. Ethical coffee is only Organic, Shade-Grown, and Fairly Traded.
Why organic coffee? By only purchasing USDA Certified Organic, our farmer’s are encouraged to make the safe choice for themselves and their families.
Why Shade-Grown? By only purchasing 100% shade-grown coffee we’re encouraging our farmer’s to prevent soil erosion and ensure the sustainability of their land.
By only purchasing our coffee at upwards of three times the price of fair trade coffee we are making a commitment to ethical coffee.
What makes Agros work is also what makes their organization a perfect fit for our Coffee Lover’s Club members. Agros is NOT an organization that makes a habit of giving out cash, services, or goods to “help” a needy family. They believe, as does CICR, that that doesn’t solve anything. Agros believes that giving a handout causes a dependancy that isn’t healthy and doesn’t promote self-sustainability. We believe ethical coffee comes from forming a stronger long-term partnership with coffee farmers. This ensures a helping hand not simply an unsustainable handout. Ethical coffee must be sustainable.
The Agros Model to Ethical Coffee
- Community Organization – “Help families define a vision for a new community and develop the local leadership required to create a self-sustaining, thriving community.”
- Land Ownership – “Work with families to identify and purchase agricultural land on credit and use their payments to purchase land for other new communities.”
- Community Education and Training – “Create opportunities for adequate healthcare, education, adult literacy and spiritual growth.”
- Housing and Infrastructure – “Implement community and individual construction projects such as houses, schools, irrigation systems, latrines, infrastructure and community centers.”
- Sustainable Economic Growth – “Develop agricultural production and support income-generating activities through microenterprise loans and technical training.”
- Passing on the Blessing – “Give other communities the opportunity to own land through repaid loans and empower them to dream of a brighter future for their children.”
read more in depth information here
We feel it’s important that you — the Coffee Lover’s Club member — knows exactly what ethical coffee means. We feel you should know what your purchases are doing to create hope for others.
Please check out Agros at the following links:
www.agros.org, on Facebook, on Twitter and watch some of their videos on our YouTube channel or the video page on our blog.
Dan – CICR
We’ve been working really hard on making our image match our purpose. There are so many great reasons to buy our coffee and we find that sometimes we lose our purpose AND our customers’ attention when trying to relay that message to them. Sure, we have organic, fairly traded, shade grown, top 1% of the coffee available on the market (and if you’re already buying from us, you probably started skimming because you’ve heard that message so much!) Really though, what is our main purpose? Sure, we’re a business trying to make money, but there is so much more to it than that.
It’s almost noon and the Mother’s Day Art Studio Tour is in full swing! Come on out to Camano Island and enjoy watching local artists do what they do best! You’ll find glass blowing, watercolor paintings, rock sculptures and much more! It’s on today, tomorrow and Sunday and Camano Island Coffee Roasters has decided to stay open this Sunday (10:00am to 4:00pm) as well! Grab a cup of coffee on your way and have a great time!
Here’s some information on Honduras:
It’s been a little while since we’ve posted a blog post. This is just a note to let you know that we’re still here and have many exciting things coming. We’ve diverted a lot of our focus (temporarily!) from the blog to the many new and exciting changes coming to you soon!
Our Papua New Guinea coffee is one of our most popular coffees which is entirely understandable given it’s undertones that provide hints of cocoa. It has a medium to full body and is considered by many to be among the finest and most expensive coffee in the world. Most of PNG’s arabica coffee comes from trees that were uprooted in Jamaica (Blue Mountain) and replanted in PNG.
According to the 
Papua New Guinea is known as a country ripped in pieces by civil war, lawlessness and poverty. Yet in the last few years, thanks to many factors including sustainable coffee purchasing, Papua New Guinea has started down the road to recovering it’s economy and government corruption. It’s a long road ahead, but we have helped immensely and can continue to help just through responsible purchasing.
This note is a little late and we apologize for that! On Friday, February 27th, Camano Island Coffee Roasters was able to host a class of 19 people from Edmonds Community College. Jeff gave them a tour and was able to talk with them about sustainable business. Another hot topic they discussed was a very important topic to us at CICR: Ethical Business. The class received the discussion warmly and were open and inquisitive. Thank you to Edmonds Community College for the opportunity to spend time sharing our business and our vision with you!