Delicious Peace Grows in a Ugandan Coffee Bean

In a nation once plagued by Idi Amin's reign of terror and intolerance, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Ugandan coffee farmers have come together to challenge historical prejudice and economic hurdles by forming the "Delicious Peace Coffee Cooperative." The cooperative has become a model for others, demonstrating how the interweaving of harmonious relationships with Fair Trade practices can substantially improve the lives of people who are economically challenged. In Delicious Peace, the Ugandan farmers opened their lives to the filmmakers for an intimate look at the struggles they face, the hopes they harbor, and the successes they have found. Many lives in the world revolve around the coffee bean, the second-most traded commodity in the world. But coffee farmers face many challenges, from low prices on worldwide markets, to exploitative intermediaries and government policies that make exports difficult. In 2003, a Jewish coffee farmer in a region of Uganda that has long produced some of the highest quality coffee in the world approached his Christian and Muslim neighbors and asked that they put aside their religious differences, as well as their pessimism about growing coffee, to create a new cooperative. Calling their brand "Mirembe Kawomera" ("Delicious Peace"), they partnered with an American Fair Trade buyer to bring this organic and kosher coffee to the U.S. market. Today, as a result of good wages through Fair Trade, the farmers' standard of living is improving, harmony is flourishing, and their message of peace and fair wages is spreading to their neighbors, as well as their coffee customers in the US.