Compassion.

Jubala Village Coffee exists beacause an eighteen year old boy from Raleigh, NC befriended a Kenyan man and his village twelve years ago. As this friendship continued, Andrew found that while the people were happy, they still struggled in ways that seemed unnecessary, especially in a world where help and compassion seemed readily available.

There is only one place in the world where per-capita food production continues to worsen year by year. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for sixteen of the eighteen most undernourished countries in the world.

“Riding shotgun next to Alex, my translator for my second trip to East-Africa, I began to view this beautiful landscape differently. Cutting through the Great Rift Valley along the bumpy half-paved roads, I was no longer focused on the bright green coffee fields that stretched for miles or the yellow sunflowers that painted the horizon. Instead my attention was fixed on the plows riding the backs of cattle, the absence of irrigation and fertilizer on the farms, and the small children peeking through the corn fields yelling “mazungu” (ghost in Swahili) as they picked through their damaged crop instead of attending school. We pulled up to his village and walked to his hut, which sat in the middle of his family’s two acre farm. He began to explain to me that like most Sub-Sahara African families, cultivating their land is their only means of life.”

- Andrew Cash; jornal entry during second trip to Kenya in 2004

Sixty percent of all Sub-Saharan Africans depend on agriculture as their source for living, where three-fifths of their farm is used for subsistence. The remaining two-fifths of the farm is bartered or sold at a large town village, and the residual harvest is left to rot since it cannot be preserved for future consumption. More than half the population of this region of the world earns an average of $0.65 a day, half the cost of a bottle of Coke. The challenges that most of these families, like Alex’s family, face are cyclical. According to Alex, these families lack sufficient resources to escape this rut where the families find themselves trapped generation after generation. The farmers have to depend on nature for the farms to receive proper irrigation and fertility. If the growing season experiences even the slightest drought, these regions do not have the adequate irrigation system to save the harvest. Since few families have automobiles, families have to save and plan seasonal trips into town to sell their goods, which is costly, time-consuming, and, due to poorly planned road systems, dangerous. Farming is a family business. The children are often found working the land instead of attending school and developing other life skills. With a lack of education, these children are at a disadvantage to find future employment and will likely find themselves taking over the family farm or starting a new farm on their own.

If these same farmers produce some of the best coffee in the world, then why do they continue to fight for life everyday? Jubala Village Coffee believes that, by showing a small amount of compassion, it can make a large amount of difference in the lives of these farmers. By working with Counter Culture Coffee, a direct trade coffee roaster, Jubala can better understand the specific and individual needs of each coffee community. While providing great tasting coffee and fostering community are extremely important to the continued growth and success of Jubala, having compassion for the farmers, by understanding their needs, is our primary mission.

Jubala plans to set aside a minimum of 10% of all profits for projects specific to the lives of the farming communities in which Jubala and Counter Culture work.