On assignment for Fairtrade it took Sean Hawkey six months to visit 100 coffee producing cooperatives across Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. Interviewing farmers he witnessed first hand the ways in which Fairtrade was transforming the lives of these rural communities, via education and health projects. Sean took photos in each farm. A selection of these images are on exhibition in the RDS this weekend as part of Dublin Tea and Coffee Festival.

Central America has been in turmoil for years, with civil wars and gang violence among the problems faced. President of Guatemala, Otto Perez Molina, was, for instance, arrested recently on corruption charges. And now, climate change, storms and droughts are also devastating the region.
Premiums are paid to coffee producers who pass the stringent criteria for Fairtrade certification. The additional earnings can make a huge difference. How they use the addition income is decided first by the coops themselves. Some of it is divided among the farmers as a dividend, some invested in community projects or new infrastructure. Crucially, it’s the farmers themselves who decide. They have the best understanding of where their needs and priorities lie.
Ivan Vasquez, a professional coffee cupper (taster) from Honduras, says: “Fairtrade has rules on environmentally sound management of crops, and on waste treatment for example, so, to get certified a lot of farmers will have to change the way they work. To help them do that, agronomists employed by Fairtrade train them on how to improve their production and farm without damaging the environment. A lot of farmers say that the increase in production they get after training is a greater benefit than the premium”.
“The impacts we see are impressive,” says Vasquez. “Farmers are enjoying big increases in their production, and previously poisonous runoffs are being converted into useful fertilizers using simple technologies”.
Hawkey says that “for many people the most impressive thing is how Fairtrade rules are transforming women’s lives. Fairtrade certification insists on women taking part in the ownership of the farms and in the decision-making structures and processes in the cooperatives. Many couples I met had re-drawn farm ownership titles, giving the woman equal ownership and control. For many of the cooperatives, joining Fairtrade was the first time that women had been given a seat and a voice on their management. In several coops women were managing the coop. One coop was entirely for women farmers. In a male-dominated macho environment these are meaningful transformations”.
“This is all a big achievement for Irish people too” says Hawkey. “All these improvements in poor farmers’ lives have come from the decision of ordinary people in Ireland and elsewhere to buy Fairtrade products.”

Fairtrade Ireland is running the exhibition at The Dublin Coffee & Tea Festival at RDS, Dublin this Saturday and Sunday 11-13th September.