Java. Joe. Brew. Whatever you call it, coffee is a fixture in American culture, a heart-warming part of our national diet. With average consumption exceeding 400 million cups a day, America is the leading consumer of coffee in the world, an $18 billion dollar market that secures 90 percent of its production from the third world. While the cost of an average cup now ranges from $1.25 to $2.50 in the US, not counting higher priced gourmet specialty brews, millions of farmers in countries like Nicaragua, Ethiopia and Sumatra, working year ‘round growing the beverage we imbibe, receive but a tiny fraction of that price for their labor. Too often, the multi-national financial machinery that grinds out our richly flavored brew leaves poverty in its dregs.
The People Who Write for TIO
This posting marks TIO’s sixth issue. Half a year in seems a good time to catch a breath and see where we’ve come. More than 100 articles, news items, interfaith reports, and calendar events have gone to TIO subscribers and can now be found at www.theinterfaithobserver.org. In sum, this material underlines the assumption which motivated this venture in the first place – that those who embrace interfaith culture need to know more about each other, the manifold resources that are surfacing, and the ways healthy interfaith collaboration can contribute to peace, justice, and care for the Earth.