indonesian Fair Trade Coffee

To my recent knowledge, there's only one 100% organic and Fair Trade Indonesian coffee so far, called Coffee Gayo. This coffee producer is located in the tsunami stricken area too, Takengon, Highland of Aceh (Northest part of Sumatra Island). I have found a report from Transfair USA about what's been going on to this coffee producer due to tsunami. Here is the report. I need to research more about the 4 coffee producer groups Transfair USA mentioned. I have no clue besides Coffee Gayo now. I was fortunate enough, on my 2-week trip home recently, a friend of my sister who works for Unicef gave me this one and only package of Coffee Gayo. It's a gem now. I have not opened it, and I won't until I find out first whether I can get a lot more to sell it in my shop. It's great to know that my country has a program with partnerships with many international body of organizations, esp. Fair Trade. I need to research more in this area.

Thanks also for Coffee Kids for doing many positive supports, help and partnership to this Coffee Gayo producers before, during and after tsunami event in Aceh.

"The Gayo Organic Coffee Farmers Association (PPKGO) is an organic Fair Trade cooperative located in the Gayo Highlands of the Aceh province of Sumatra, Indonesia. Co-op members are small-scale coffee farmers dedicated to producing 100% shade-grown, organic coffee. In a region known for political conflict, the co-op has continued to produce, process, and export high quality Sumatran coffee. It has maintained relative peace and unity among an ethnically diverse membership comprised of Gayo, Javanese, Acehnese, Padang, and Batak peoples. Twenty percent of PPKGO's members are women.

Co-op famers live in an environmentally sensitive region--the buffer zone to Gunung Leuser National Park, which contains critical watershed areas and sanctuaries for endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger. Fair Trade price incentives and technical support provided by the cooperative have encouraged sustainable agriculture and resource conservation.

Significant revenues earned from selling to the Fair Trade and organic markets allow PPKGO to contribute to a wide variety of programs, including:
>>Community nurseries to provide improved and grafted coffee and shade tree seedlings
>>Rehabilitation of degraded lands and unproductive coffee trees
>>A weed cutter program to help farmers avoid the use of herbicides
>>A credit union to extend small loans to families in the cooperative
>>Community infrastructure improvements to the water supply, local roads, mosques, and schools
>>Coffee processing improvements including the construction of a cupping lab and the purchase of five wet mills
>>Income diversification projects in which farmers grow additional crops such as vanilla, potatoes and bananas"

About Co-op:
Date Established: 1997
Number of members: 1,900
Annual Production: 99 containers

About the coffee:
Varieties of Arabica: Bergendal, Catimor, Caturra, Sidikalang, Typica
Elevation: 1,100m-1,500m
Processing: Pulped, fermented, semi-washed (Sumatran fasion), sun dried, machine and hand sorted
Cup Characteristics: low acidity, medium to firm body, earthy
Harvest season: Oct-Jun
Export seaosn: Nov-Sept
Organic Production: 100%

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