Sweet Unity Farms Coffee founded by David Robinson, son of baseball great Jackie Robinson. David has made his home in Tanzania for the past two decades; he leads a social mission of growing coffee from seed to cup.
The cooperative is located in the southern highlands of Tanzania, East Africa, in the region called Mbeya. David, a rural farmer himself, provides the farmers as much as 25% more than "fair trade" value for their crops.
As coffee is Tanzania's largest foreign exchange earner, Sweet Unity Farms Coffee is an effort to change a bleak reality and create a voice, window, and means of joining the world community.
The beauty of East Africa is legendary. So is its poverty. Tanzanian coffee farmers are often forced to sell their harvest to large corporate buyers. This series of transactions takes virtually all of the earnings away from the farmers.
In leveraging their unity, the coffee farmers can seek direct trade buyers from large American and European markets. The result is a Sweet Unity Farms that can invest in itself and its community.
By building direct trade agreements with distributors, Sweet Unity Farms eliminates the mid-level buyers and sellers. The results are widespread:
• Help to needy communities
• Development in impoverished areas
• Equitable pay for coffee farmers and pickers
• Direct inspection of coffee quality standards
• Better control of environmental standards
• Education for future generations
• Leadership out of poverty and into dignity
A Spike Lee's Lil' Joints - Of The Father And Of The Son - a Coffee Documentary