Categories: Community

Equal Exchange worker-owner Peter Buck spoke at the July 23rd Nuns on the Bus rally in Boston. Get a recap of the event, plus watch a video of his speech.

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! What do you have planned for your special someone (or yourself)? This year, we’re celebrating love of all kinds – including our love for Fair Trade, of course. Here are a few ways you can incorporate your support of small farmers into your gift-giving and activities on February 14. 

Don Juan Mora, a small-scale organic coffee farmer in Nicaragua, reached down and took a piece of organic material that was covered with a fungal mat from the soil on his farm. “When you see this, it means the soil is good and coffee plants will do well,” he said. As a master gardener back in the U.S., this made me think more about soil and its importance. A commonly used axiom in gardening and horticulture is the statement that “soil is not dirt.” This simple but profound gardening proverb suggests that healthy soil is a complex mixture of minerals, organic matter, air, water and millions of different living organisms (bacteria, archaea, fungi, algae, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, earthworms, gastropods and more). We should think of healthy soil as a living, breathing organism which needs to be nourished in order to support plant and animal life. This concept has also been called the “soil food web” to denote the interdependent nature of these relationships.

This spring, we raised $4,720 to help Ugandan women build 118 energy-efficient stoves in their communities, surpassing our goal of 100 stoves! Thanks to everyone who contributed to the effort by entering our g