Growing Organic Naturally
Many farmers in remote indigenous growing regions often grow all their crops organically for economic reasons. Lack of money and access to transportaion make it impractical for farmers growing high grow coffee on small plots to get chemicals for growing. This coffee usually goes to market as coventional coffee or as Organic Certified by a thrid party purchaser under questionable procedures.

Growers First works with our producers' groups to go through the process of certification as a groups. This allows small farmers to work together in reaping the rewards of Organic Certificaiton and learn more about the organic farming process to improve crops.

Organic Certifiers
Growers First seeks out organic certifiers such as GOCA, Guaranteed Organic Certification Agency, to go the extra mile in doing remote certifications. Charlie Heermans from GOCA, an organic farmer himself, understands the need to reach these remote areas to spread the benefit of certification to small farmers.

Whether with local certifiers, or GOCA,Growers First develops programs where teaching methods of organic agriculture leads to improved crop results along with the added income. Long interviews during certification help to bring out best practices from remote farms where farmers from the same village do not see their neighbors crop. Charlie, and the dedication of certifiers like him, add to the effect cooperatives can have on their farmers.
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Growers First strives to provide a variety of farming alternatives. Coffee is their opportunity to access the largest cash crop for the rural poor, but reliance on mono-crop agriculture leaves small family farmers vunerable to market swings and crop failure.

Crop alternatives can include:

• Spices and Herbs
• Sustenance Farming
• Local Market Crops such as Tomatos
• Animal Husbandry

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The Kingdom Farm Fund

The micro-finance committee of Growers First established the Kingdom Farm Fund under the direction of Joe Woodard, Committee Chair, last fall. This fund is designed as a combination of standing fund, and borrowing agency for the producers' groups in Growers First programs. Two of the mail goals of the Kingdom Farm Fund are to make sure funds are made at the farmer level and to prepare producers' groups to work with commercial and development banks.

Farm Level Loans

Many micro-finance operations occur only at a level practical for the lending party from outside the growing country. This means loans are made at the mill level when coffee is coming in, but farmers must get the crops ready without credit to buy inputs, labor or to sustain the family while on the farm.

Growers First trains the producers' groups leaders on systems and provides credit early in the season so farmers can borrow from thier own program to whom they will be delivering coffee. This allows the multilevel economic effect credit can have by providing access to capital throughout the value chain. Sick farmers hire the healthy to pick their crops. Poor farmers buy tools to tend their trees. Neighbors can hire each other to pick coffee at the peak season for each farm and ensure the greatest yeild of high quality coffee.

Economic Independent Groups

Growers First works with our producers groups to grow them into idependent providers of services to their farmers. By setting aside profits to build a local bank and working with commercial and credit facilities such as Ecologic Finance, the local organizations can continue to grow the size and effect of their own organizations. Growers First must spend years to get a new group ready to pass audits, build democratic boards and build reserves to access the services of commercial credit and other organizations.

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Trade
Coffee is one of the largest traded commodities in the world. It is consumed by the wealthiest on earth and grown by the poorest. Coffee is often the sole cash income crop of the small family farmers that grow it.

Production
Specialty coffee is grown by over 25 million families. The best coffee grows high in tropical mountains in places without roads, power or communications. 20 million of these farm families produce 20% of the specialty coffee in these high areas on small farms less than 5 acres, while the remaining 5 million families produce the remaining 80% of low grown coffee on large plantations.

Problem
This situation has existed for hundreds of years. There is no silver bullet to solve rural poverty. It takes a long term commitment to find complex solutions for the problems of each community. Growers First long term relationships provide resources, sharing of ideas and hope.

Solutions
Growers First focuses on helping the farmers find the best export markets for their coffee through crop improvement, organic certification, export management and marketing. These iniatives provide the hope to step rural migration and lead to sustainability or stability until other economic alternatives can be developed.
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During the past five years as a volunteer program, Growers First has begun the process of developing outreach programs to minister to the farmers and their families.

The program focus is two-fold, short-term immediate aid relief and long-term implementation of programs that provide an opportunity to bring in value-added programs that enhance these communities.

Short-term immediate aid relief is usually the first area addressed. In many cases farmers that have been struggling for a long period of time are not financially able to provide even the basic necessities for their family. Fruits, vegetables baby food and toiletries are considered luxuries in many remote villages. Medical care is scarce. Farmers and their families may go months or even years without seeing a doctor.

The goal is to provide immediate food and medical relief so the farmers and their families can become healthy, thereby preparing themselves physically, mentally and spiritually to undertake the challenge of learning new and improved ways to farming their land resulting in additional income to support their families.

Long term programs are established through mission teams that are sent in the area to assess and address specific challenges. Engaging mission teams for assistance provides an opportunity for people to see first hand the difficulties that farmers face on a daily basis; children who are unable to attend school because they lack uniforms, books and supplies; inadequate nutrition which prevents their capacity to learn and retain important information; lack of adequate transportation to and from school. These are the challenges faced every day by coffee farming families and mission outreach programs provides an excellent opportunity to assist in making significant positive changes.

Team participation is the key to success to developing long lasting relationships with the farmers and at the same time, understanding how they may be better served during this time of growth. The program, objective is to provide a “hand up” not a “hand out”. An effective program is one that eventually becomes non-existent because the villages and communities become self sufficient.
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