My friend Dave Day used to own Specialty Coffee Company. In developing the business he traveled to small mountain coffee farms in Mexico, Central America, and South America. The more time he spent with the farmers, the more help he realized they needed and the more he was able to help them. He helped them get organic certifications, he coached them on leadership, he helped them find a fair distributor to buy their beans so they wouldn’t have to sell to the ‘coyotes’. He helped them with their livestock and handicrafts. He found that within a year of impacting a farmers methods in these ways, their income would often triple. That still isn’t much by most standards but a 300% sustainable increase in one year in any context is huge.
Dave recently sold his business to be able to impact growers and villages around the world full time in this way. He started Growers First a few years ago and now he is running this non-profit full-time.
He sent about 10 lbs of beans in the mail this week and wow, we’ve been enjoing it! I’ve been roasting full-city to full-city plus and it is soooo smooth.
Thanks Dave.
