Co-ops Helping Co-ops - Internationally

The Wedge participates in a listserv called CGIN - Cooperative Grocers Information Network - on which we post questions, share information, ask advice, and make our co-ops stronger by working together. Imagine the advantage of having access to the thoughts and experience of hundreds of cooperators.

In mid November, there was a post from Jeanne Lakso, Marketing & Member Services Manager at our sister co-op, Linden Hills. A Linden Hills staff member who went to Nicaragua last year with an Equal Exchange Fair Trade delegation had received an urgent letter from Equal Exchange, appealing for help on behalf of the CONACADO cacao cooperative in the Dominican Republic. The members of the CONACADO co-op are recovering from damage done by Hurricane Jeanne in September. Equal Exchange is attempting to raise $10,000 in donations. Co-op manager Abel Fernandez says that CONACADO member families are likely to lose up to 30% of their income during the coming year, and the hurricane related flooding damaged at least 25% of the member farms displacing about 13,000 people.

CONACADO (Confederacion Nacional de Cacaocultores Dominicanos) is a registered co-operative producer group on the Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International register. It is comprised of 9,000 small farmers organized into 9 regional "bloque" associations consisting of 126 village associations. CONACADO was founded in 1988 as a response to low global cocoa prices, and in order to assist small-scale cocoa farmers in improving their working and living conditions. CONACADO cocoa is produced using organic agricultural techniques under the shade grown canopy of other fruit producing trees. Premiums from fair trade sales have directly assisted to improve production and the quality of their cocoa. CONACADO Fair Trade cacao is used in Equal Exchange cocoa products and chocolate bars, Dagoba's Conacado bar and Rapunzel Organic Chocolates.

Linden Hills Co-op started the ball rolling by pledging $100 towards this relief effort, and invited other consumer cooperatives to do the same. Open Harvest jumped in with a matching contribution, along with so many other Co-ops doing the same that my mailbox was flooded with responses. Just two days after the initial request, Co-ops on the CGIN listserve had pledged over $6,000. As of December 1st Food Co-ops and a few other Co-ops organizations from across the country have pledged $9,000 to CONACADO and the money is rolling in. It makes me proud to be part of the co-op movement.

For more information on CONACADO and the Hurricane Relief effort, go to Equal Exchange's website at www.equalexchange.com or go to www.lasiembra.com/conacado or if you can make your way through the site in Spanish, you can visit www.conacado.com and see pictures of the farmers and the cacao growing.

Jean E. Helms is the General Manager at Open Harvest Natural Foods in Lincoln, NE.Christopher Durkin is the Director of Membership and Community Relations at Harvest Co-op Market in Cambridge, MA.