Free Trade Agreements

(The photo is not my own. I uploaded it from a website. The children are from Costa Rica).

I went to Costa Rica last summer (2006) on a member's mission trip with church. It was a wonderful experience on many levels. Costa Rica is known for their hospitality, warmth, sabor, rain forests, and (my favorite) COFFEE. Although my focus was not for personal pursuits, I was able to enjoy connecting with the culture and the politics. I wrote on coffee production and distribution for my senior thesis the year before, so the ideas were fresh in my mind. I was overwhelmed with the sensory experiences when we got a brief tour of a prominent coffee plantation. The coffee fields were BEAUTIFUL! I remembered the issues I wrote in my senior thesis regarding the production of coffee. Quite often the farmers are neglected physically and financially for their goods, because the middle men (let's call them marketers) monopolize on sales with manufacturers and distributors (I know...I know...Starbucks included). I learned so much in my research. Have you taken a trip down the coffee/tea aisle at your local grocery store? Do you know those brand name coffee labels...let's say.....Folgers? Well, not only are they multi-national corporations that employ people in other countries ( I did not say anything about child labor or sweat shops). Well, what happens is they work with the middle man and the farmer gets little (LITTLE) money for their hard labor. (Have you worked in a coffee field, strawberry field, cacao field? - I haven't either, but I can see the people bending over in the strawberry fields off the 5 Freeway in Southern California. It looks painful. That's like real hard work, the kind that requires a massage and a hearty meal at the end of the day. (How much do they get paid?) Oh, they are immigrants...maybe that's not regulated either. I really don't know, or have any facts and today is not my day to be Erin Brokovitz (I have a feeling I mispelled her last name - forgive me and correct me by all means). Well...it's every body's day to be like her. Advocate. Speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. Fight for those who cannot fight or give tools to those who do not have any so they can fight for themselves. That's what I am talking about.