The Edge of Your Coffee Field

"When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.” - Exodus23:22

What an obscure quote for an industrialized society. I don't have any fields. I don't reap them. And if I did, the poor would not come out and pick up the gleanings. But buried in this ancient text is the heart of God toward the poor.

Although people would classify me as poor, according to American standards, I am not poor. I have seen poor people, and they are nothing like me.  The poor literally don't know where their next meal will come from. Many live in crumbling dirty housing, the best they can afford. They don't get to put on a clean set of clothes every day. They only have one. They don't own a car. They don't have a computer or an iphone. They work hard for much less than minimum wage. The most shocking thing about the poor, is how many there are. Half the world's people live on less than $2.50 a day.

I think we have to face the fact that we Americans are the rich people in all the stories. The rich young ruler, told to give away all his possessions - that's us. "Woe to you who are rich" - that is a woe upon us. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than an American to enter the kingdom of God. And so all those verses about the rich providing for the poor, those are for us too. (I don't have the space or time to begin to unpack Deuteronomy 24:10-15, Isaiah 58, and Luke 12:13-21)

I was raised to be frugal. You get the best deal you can, and make your dollar stretch as far as possible. But God tells the Israelite farmers not to be as frugal as possible. We would call it wasteful. He calls it generous. I never stopped to think about how my frugality could effect the poor workers around the world. When I saw myself as poor, I needed that money for other things (like new clothes and a vacation). But when I began to see myself as rich, all that changed. I can no longer glean to the edge of my field, saving every last penny on a cheaper product when the people who made it barely scrape by.

I have a responsibility to the earth's poor.  They are my neighbors. I have been buying coffee from large corporations that exploit the poor by forcing them to sell their harvest for a lower price than they need to survive. I'm sure I have been doing the same thing with a number of other products I buy. I can not possibly learn the origin story of every product I buy, but I can start with what I know.  I know coffee.  I have decided it is worth a dollar or two extra for a bag of coffee that is Fair Trade certified.  In the end, I might have to slightly decrease my consumer spending to offset the difference.  A sacrifice well worth making.

Fair Trade is an internationally recognized supply line certification that guarantees certain prices to farmers, works to improve working conditions, environmental conditions and  living conditions among the poor who produce so many of goods we consume. (See http://www.fairtradeusa.org/) Fair trade is not the only way to ensure we are buying goods that do not exploit the poor, it is just an easy way find goods that meet these standards.

It doesn't have to end with coffee. I can look at other products I consume a lot of and switch to fair trade options for those as well. The more we buy of these products, the more they appear in the stores we frequent.  As they become more available, others can choose them too. I don't know if we can end poverty, but we can reverse the trend of exploiting the world's poor. We can leave a little grain on the edge of our fields by purchasing products that leave a little extra money in the hands of the poor workers of the world.



Coffee-lovers, check out this award winning coffee produced by some friends of mine in Laos.  While not yet Fair Trade Certified, it is bought at fair prices with a high regard for the workers and their communities. http://www.saffroncoffee.com/