Café - Hot Topic

U.S. farming practices may be better, but some U.S. farms still use pesticides and fertilizers that contaminate ground water and streams, which can have a harmful effect on wildlife and human health. And the pesticides don't stop at the farm: The toxins from those flowers can be released into the air you breathe in your home.

But there are options. Ask your florist for local or organic choices, or perhaps go for a potted plant.

Fortunately, love itself is free of global trade and market forces. There are unlimited ways to show someone that you love them; just be creative. I hope that some additional eco-consciousness is just the creative boost you need.

Divine Double Chocolate torte. Photo courtesy of Divine Chocolate

Have a local, organic, fair trade V-day every day!

1. Ask your date to commit to volunteering for a cause you both care about.

2. Write a love poem.

3. Stay in. Set aside an evening for you and your date to hang out and talk. Drink wine (responsibly) and enjoy your time together. If your “date” consists of getting together with your best girlfriends, do the same thing.

4. Check out a local showing of The Vagina Monologues. Proceeds from the play go to empower women affected by violence all over the world.

5. Bake a fair-trade cake. For the recipe of the Divine Double Chocolate torte in the photo above, go to the Divine Chocolate Web site.

6. Use fair trade to tell the story. Whether you bake cupcakes with fair-trade certified cocoa for your co-workers, book club, or date, use the opportunity to talk about how fair trade is improving the lives of families and communities around the world.

7. Buy a Hallmark card from the RED campaign: 8 percent of net wholesale sales will go to the Global Fund to help people living with AIDS in Africa.

Whatever way you choose to express your love this Valentine’s Day, don’t overlook simple gestures like spending time together or giving a hand-written card. As a consumer, don’t forget to share what you know about fair trade with others while doing your part to buy fairly traded goods.

Valentine’s Day is once a year, but affirming your relationships with yourself and others can be celebrated every day.

Emily Davila works in the Lutheran Office at the United Nations in New York City.

No progress on child labor, but fair trade chocolate is on the rise.
Equal Exchange

Say it with organic flowers.
Co-op America

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Researchers have found that American women appear to crave chocolate more than women elsewhere in the world. (I’d like to meet those other women; perhaps they just haven’t had Divine Chocolate yet.)


	Cecilia Appianim

But for women cocoa farmers in Ghana, chocolate is much more than a craving. For the women of Kuapa Kokoo, a fair-trade farmers’ cooperative and part owner of Divine Chocolate, chocolate is the way to a bright future.

Fair trade means that farmers are paid a fair price for their crops and receive premiums to invest in their communities. An equally important part of Kuapa Kokoo’s commitment to fair trade is the advancement of democracy to empower farmers in the local and global markets.

Democracy makes it possible for the farmers of Kuapa (45,000 members in 1,200 villages) to discuss how to improve their communities in ways that benefit the greatest number of people. In a world where cocoa farmers are exposed to the vagaries of a market beyond their control, farmers value the ability to speak up for themselves, say what is on their minds, and set the chart for their own futures. Democracy also requires that both men and women take part.

Cecilia Appianim is a cocoa farmer from the village of Asemtem in the Central Region of Ghana. She is also a member of the national executive council for Kuapa Kokoo, and she visited the United States recently to help promote Divine. She explained the importance of women taking part in this way:

“Fair trade has helped us a lot. Because of fair trade, women can come out boldly and take part in every event. Before, it was not like that. Before, we would stay at home and watch the men. And we would work with our husbands and they would take the money, put it in their pockets, and when it came time to buy food or pay school fees they would say the money is gone.

But Kuapa has opened our eyes to see that everything should be 50-50. So if a man has one vote, a woman has one as well. If the men come together to make a decision, then the women are there to take part as well. So now we are empowered, and the men, they cannot cheat us again.

Also because of fair trade, we have many projects for women. We make soap, t-shirts, batik. We grow other foodstuffs and sell in the market and then put some money into the credit union for hardship times or to pay our children's school fees.”

Valentine’s Day is approaching, and we hope that you will celebrate with Divine Chocolate. Women’s History Month follows in March. So, women, as if we need a reason to eat more chocolate, think of Divine as more than a way to satisfy your cravings. Your support is a contribution to democracy and the empowerment of women around the world.

Divine Chocolate is co-owned by the farmers of Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana. Lutheran World Relief is an investor in Divine and enthusiastically supports the sale of Divine Chocolate through the LWR Chocolate Project. You can also purchase Divine Chocolate through LWR.

Erin Gorman is the CEO for Divine Chocolate.

Feel like making a Divine Panna cotta dessert? Check out the recipe on the Tip jar page.

Visit the study page for ideas for discussion and further reflection.

Given the global scale on which business is transacted and money exchanged today, Luther’s observation from nearly 500 years ago is still appropriate.

The biblical texts can also speak to our context of large-scale, global injustice in the marketplace. Leviticus 19 calls for holiness in social ethics, and Jesus wastes no time highlighting the importance of such ethics. In addition to Deuteronomy, it is this chapter in Leviticus that he quotes when asked what is the greatest commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (verse 18).

Unfair trade is nothing less than theft. Fair trade is sweet love that everyone can give and receive. It is one way of making a dent in the large-scale theft that often goes unnoticed in the millions of places where money is exchanged for goods and labor today.

But is love merely “fair”? Is it always fair according to the current definition of fairness? The parable in Matthew 20:1-16, might raise eyebrows.

Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a landowner who goes out early to hire day laborers. Hiring some at nine o’clock for the daily wage, the landowner goes out again at noon, three o’clock, and five o’clock, collecting more workers each time. At the end of the day, the landowner tells the manager to pay the workers, beginning with the last. Those first hired watch as the manager pays a full daily wage to those last hired, who worked only a tiny fraction of the day. “Sweet!” the first hired must have thought, “We’re gonna get more!” The first-hired are understandably surprised and angry when they receive the same daily wage as the ones who worked just one hour. The ones who worked a full day grumble to the landowner, whose response is striking: “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (verses 14-16)

Jesus’ story shakes up conventional ideas of what is fair and right. With a fresh interpretation of justice and grace, Jesus puts front and center the freedom of God to choose generosity. He points to a God who labors to seek out the needy and who gives without reserve. Nowhere is this generosity clearer than in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the story of God’s giving all in spite of getting so little in return. Martin Luther calls this the “happy exchange,” an ironic description of what doesn’t look like a “fair trade” at all. In exchange for the burden of humanity’s unfairness and sin, Jesus gives life and the gift of a love meant to be lived and shared.

The Bible calls this “justification,” a word related to “justice.” In a world of unfair trade, Jesus offers the sweetest gift exchange of all: unearned love and forgiveness (of sins and of debts, as Luke’s Gospel reads in Greek). And what wondrous love it is.

In the language of faith, fair trade is more than a company or a product. It’s a way of life that is lived in response to the graceful “happy exchange” between God and us. It’s a way that promotes justice and health for all, especially the most vulnerable. Fair trade is filled with the personal, political, and economic sweetness of love toward God and neighbor.

Maybe Valentine’s Day makes you melt into the arms of your beloved. Maybe you’re so over it before it even arrives. Either way, consider the sweetness of happy exchange and fair trade this February 14.

Amy Thoren recently finished her first call as associate pastor at St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minn., and currently serves as pastor at Diamond Lake Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. She is also so over Valentine's Day.