Your morning cup of coffee may taste like a gift from God, but in reality, it's the result of many people's love, time, and labour.
From the barista who brews it for you, the owner of the coffee shop that hires the barista and buys the beans, to the farmer that grows the plant that produces those beans, your coffee meets and is cared for by many people on its journey to you.
Those people and their efforts are too often forgotten — in particular, the efforts of the farmers. As Matt Graylee, Director of specialty coffee supply chain company Raw Material explains:
'Worldwide, one of the clearest self-identified issues facing producers of coffee is the low and unpredictable price they can sell raw coffee for. A lack of control as to what the market price will be once the harvest is complete is disempowering. The common market price falls below the cost of production at times. Across the last five years of coffee farming in Colombia we've seen multiple nationwide riots during seasons where this is the case.'
That's why Raw Material is building a community coffee wet mill in Calarca, Colombia, with the aim of providing a stable income to surrounding coffee farming neighbourhoods.
And how are they planning on raising the $100,000 NZD needed to fund the project? In the most fashionable way possible — using Kickstarter.
Donate now and depending on how much you pledge, you'll receive one of the six following rewards...
The Kickstarter ends at midnight on Sat, Dec 31 2016. To find out more, visit Raw Material's website here. Go go go!