NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER
My name is Walker Sales and I am the founder of Farmers Origin. In 2004, my family moved to a small coffee farm in the San Luis valley of Monteverde, Costa Rica. I soon learned that coffee farming is very time consuming, requires delicacy and skill, and is hard on the back. Although I didn’t last long in the fields, all of our neighbors are coffee farmers by profession and many of my schoolmates were the children and grandchildren of coffee farmers. I got to know many of them well and began to understand the hardships that coffee farming entails.
While coffee farmers in touristy areas have been able to profit from selling to tourists, the average coffee farmer has one option: work hard and sell at the commodity price. Contrast this with the life of Blue Bottle Coffee’s executive chairman, who just recently sold the most expensive house in San Francisco for $21.8 million. There is something wrong here.
People have asked me, “What is the difference between coffee and other commodities? Aren’t commodities usually cheap compared to the final product?” Well, coffee is different. Steel, coal, wheat, and oil producers are large businesses with government backing that have political and market power. Coffee, on the other hand, comes from a single source: small coffee farmers with none of these advantages. And while oil, steel, etc. require capital-intensive processes to be turned into finished consumer products, coffee farmers do much of the processing themselves. All that happens at the end of the supply chain is roasting, packaging, and branding—at a sale price 10 times higher than what the farmer was paid.
I have had the immense privilege of personally knowing coffee farmers and also being fortunate enough to attend college in the U.S. I want to bridge the gap between the farmers who work so hard and receive so little for their coffee and people in the U.S. (and beyond) who enjoy coffee and can appreciate all that they endure.
It takes patience to buy coffee directly from the farmers who grow it. I know that for many using Farmers Origin and waiting a week for coffee may be too much of an inconvenience. But I’m determined to change the coffee industry—eliminate its inequality—and help farmers partake in the true value of one of the most valuable commodities on earth. Farmers Origin, in its current form, may not be the answer to this greater problem, but I will continue working with you and with farmers until we find a solution that benefits everyone. If you have any suggestions or would like to speak about Farmers Origin, do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you for supporting Farmers Origin.
Walker
CONNECTING COMMUNITIES
Monteverde was founded by Quakers from Fairhope, Alabama in 1951, who came to Costa Rica as conscientious objectors to the Korean War. They brought the ideals of community, integrity, equality and stewardship with them, and established the first natural preserve in Costa Rica, the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Preserve. Farmers Origin was founded out of the needs of this community.
The unique confluence of Quaker values, Costa Rican coffee farmers, and a pristine natural environment have allowed Monteverde to become a high quality coffee producing region. Unfortunately, the coffee industry in the Monteverde area is in decline, in large part due the established coffee supply chain, in which small coffee farmers are paid a commodity price for their coffee and receive an average of 8% of the final sale price of their coffee. At the other end of the supply chain, roasters and retailers in the U.S. make an average of 70% of the final sale price.
Farmers Origin aims to solve this problem by allowing small coffee farmers to market and sell their coffee directly to the end consumer in the U.S. The farmer takes 90% of the final sale price, while Farmers Origin receives 10%. The result is that small coffee farmers can make between 2-5 times more than what they can selling at the commodity price to large exporters, and they gain autonomy.
Our hope with this project is to ensure the sustainability of the coffee industry in the Monteverde community by connecting Monteverde farmers with communities in the U.S. who share the same values.
