Green Coffee Changes Lives

For the small family farmers who grow most of the world’s coffee, the recent boom in iced lattes, skinny cappuccinos and unleaded macchiatos has yielded few benefits. They remain among the world’s poorest workers. Most of the world’s 25 million coffee farmers receive less than one percent of the price of a cup of coffee sold in a coffee bar.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The coffee industry earns $60 billion annually, but farmers receive less than 10 percent of these earnings.

Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms are managed for the benefit of farmers, farm workers and the environment. That means that employees of Rainforest Alliance Certified farms live and work under decent and safe conditions.

In order to achieve and maintain certification, farms must meet a range of standards that protect workers’ rights including the right to organize, the right to a safe working environment and the right to be paid at least the national minimum wage. Rainforest Alliance certification also ensures that farm workers are provided with dignified housing, clean drinking water, medical care for themselves and their families and free education for their children.