I know I enjoy a daily cup of coffee, as do hundreds of millions of others around the globe. As a matter of fact, this documentary estimates 1.6 billion cups of coffee are consumed each day worldwide, with small scale farms accounting for 70% of that total.
This upbeat and informative movie, brought to the screen by filmmakers Chelsea Bay Dennis and her husband Aaron Dennis, follows Matt Earley and Chris Tretter, as they travel through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. They are coffee buyers and strong advocates of what's known as the Fair Trade Movement, which tries to help the small scale farmers compete with the much larger plantations and corporations in their countries.
One of the ways to help the small scale farmers is through forming cooperatives, where local farmers can band together to grow and produce coffee beans (as well as many other products), and sell them in a collective effort at a fair market price. One thing that struck me was the highly organic nature of the small farmers products, as they don't use chemicals like the large plantations often do.
The history is these countries, depicted in the documentary, are terribly similar with the indigenous Mayan people having their land and their resources taken from them by the wealthy and powerful, only to end up as indentured servants on the same land. The movie also covers the decades long civil wars that followed, with ironically many former guerillas of these wars now producing coffee and joining in their own cooperatives.
Regarding the movie itself, which is less than 1 hr and 10 min in length, it is presented, as mentioned, in an upbeat and positive manner, while also providing lots of interesting data. The interviews with the locals and small farmers who run these cooperatives offer hope for the future, but also illustrate how there's still a long way to go to provide a solid infrastructure there. Also, there's information as to what we as consumers can do to help.
This upbeat and informative movie, brought to the screen by filmmakers Chelsea Bay Dennis and her husband Aaron Dennis, follows Matt Earley and Chris Tretter, as they travel through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. They are coffee buyers and strong advocates of what's known as the Fair Trade Movement, which tries to help the small scale farmers compete with the much larger plantations and corporations in their countries.
One of the ways to help the small scale farmers is through forming cooperatives, where local farmers can band together to grow and produce coffee beans (as well as many other products), and sell them in a collective effort at a fair market price. One thing that struck me was the highly organic nature of the small farmers products, as they don't use chemicals like the large plantations often do.
The history is these countries, depicted in the documentary, are terribly similar with the indigenous Mayan people having their land and their resources taken from them by the wealthy and powerful, only to end up as indentured servants on the same land. The movie also covers the decades long civil wars that followed, with ironically many former guerillas of these wars now producing coffee and joining in their own cooperatives.
Regarding the movie itself, which is less than 1 hr and 10 min in length, it is presented, as mentioned, in an upbeat and positive manner, while also providing lots of interesting data. The interviews with the locals and small farmers who run these cooperatives offer hope for the future, but also illustrate how there's still a long way to go to provide a solid infrastructure there. Also, there's information as to what we as consumers can do to help.
