Farmer Shares

Farmer Shares is operated as a direct trade, social enterprise that connects small hold farmers with coffee lovers in the United States (and other parts of the world). Farmer Shares is an entrepreneurial effort of Jubilee House Community. Jubilee House Community serves the people of Nicaragua, working to build self-sufficient, sustainable, and democratic communities. Learn more at their website.

All profits (revenue minus expenses for getting coffee to our supporters) are returned to small hold farmers (by paying a premium on green beans and funding community defined initiatives in farming communities).

We have defined five metrics for our work that we believe reflect this vision.

1. We provide supporters with high quality, organic, shade-grown, small hold farm grown coffee. (That is bird-friendly, too!)

• We sell good coffee that provides a smooth, enjoyable cup (see our reviews). Please take a minute to share your opinion about the coffee on our website, Yelp, or anywhere people will listen.

• We ended 2020 with 39 monthly subscribers. We have decided to set what we believe is a reasonable growth plan and have targeted a goal of 150 monthly subscribers by the end of 2021. If you are not a subscriber, please think about it. You will receive freshly roasted coffee each month at a great price.

• A note - The Pandemic caused major interruptions in our plans. Our roaster in North Carolina closed in late-March and it took a little while to shift our roasting, packing, and shipping to a new roaster in South Carolina. The closing, delay, and shift disrupted everything – and we had to apologize more than a few times for mistakes. We appreciate your staying with us as we worked through everything.

2. Pay farmers a living wage-price when they sell their crop to Farmer Shares.

• Farmer Shares increases income for the families of El Porvenir by paying a premium on the beans we buy. (You can read more about how coffee is priced and see why this is important on our website.)

• In November, Farmer Shares committed to buy El Porvenir’s 2021 coffee at $2.00 a pound. World coffee prices have hovered around $1.00 a pound over the last two years, a point where they will likely remain for the future. When we purchase coffee at this price, we effectively double the coffee farmers’ income. In addition, by contracting to purchase the coffee in the fall, we can help the farmers budget knowing they will receive a fair price at harvest.

• Individual sales of roasted beans have accounted for nearly all of our revenue. The closing of schools, churches, coffee shops, and other places where people gathered and drank coffee pretty much eliminated our hopes to sell large orders of green beans or bulk roasted coffee. This means we ended 2020 with a large inventory of green beans. Nevertheless, we decided to move forward with purchasing 2021 beans to continue to support the farmers.

3. Return all profits to the community that grows our coffee.

• We support the El Porvenir community in Nicaragua.

• Farmer Shares is run by volunteers. No one receives pay or profit from working for Farmer Shares. This allows us to keep our costs low as the enterprise grows. When we get to 250 or so regular subscribers, it will be necessary to hire a part-time staff person to work for the effort. Until then, we will retain a volunteer workforce.

• Profits from Farmer Shares’ 2020 sales, totaling about $5,000, will be returned to the El Porvenir community to fund medical services to the 43 families who live in the community.

4. Be transparent in all we do.

• We will publish an annual report on our work. And that report will measure our outcomes against the goal of supporting farmers and their communities. This report is the first of what will be a regular report on a shared endeavor.

• The Farmer Shares leadership is available to answer any question on what we do or how we do it. Supporters may email or call with their questions or concerns. You may reach us at farmershares@gmail.com. Please, reach out to us at any time with any questions or if we can be of help.

5. Operate a sound business that will be sustained over time.

Our success will begin with recognizing that our supporters want to support farmers, but also want to know they are getting quality coffee at a fair price. Here is how we operate our business to meet these goals.

• Pricing – we work to price our coffee to reflect our actual costs and our mission to return profits to producers. Generally, this is more than the going price for a bag of coffee in a large grocery store. This is because our prices are driven by the price we pay farmers for our beans, a contrast with most other coffee companies. The cost to produce a store-bought pound of coffee from green beans is between $5.00 - $6.00. This includes shipping, roasting, weight loss during roasting, grinding, bagging, marketing, and shipping - followed by labor through the distribution chain and at the grocery store. All of these costs are pretty close to fixed. There is some movement with volume, but not too much and some, like labor costs in the U.S. and loss during roasting, have definite floors. The only part of the price of a bag of coffee in a store that has any room to really move is the price paid to farmers for green beans. If a farmer is paid $1.00 a pound, then the cost for a bag of roasted coffee sitting on a store shelf is between $6.00 - $7.00 (not including the store’s profit margin). So when a large grocery store sells a bag of coffee for less than $8.50 - 9.00 dollars, the farmer that grew it is being paid nearly nothing for the labor and inputs that produced the beans.

  Our prices are higher than those in a store. We aim to adjust our prices this spring as our volume increases, which will lower some of our costs a bit. Our prices will also be affected by the end of the pandemic and the hope for increased bulk sales, which will lead to diversified revenue and profit streams.

• Roasting – we have found a great partner for roasting, bagging, and shipping. We can now offer ground coffee – although decaf is still a challenge. The coffee continues to be great and our new roaster has lowered our roasting costs by roughly $1.00 a bag!

• Quality control – we have worked to improve our overall quality while remaining consistent with environmental and fair-trade concerns. We have used a range of bags trying to find one that meets a number of concerns, including price, availability, recycling/biodegradable. We expect to commit to a new bag in the next few months, so look for cool screen printed, biodegradable, sealable bags to come in the mail.

• Fulfillment time frame – Individual orders are roasted and shipped on Tuesday each week. Subscription orders are roasted and shipped on the first Tuesday of each month. We will continue to work to lower fulfillment times, which can be expected as our subscriptions increase.