For 15 years, they have belonged to a coffee cooperative, buying their coffee directly from one of the roasters.

"I met Nelita while living on the coffee cooperatives of La Fundadora in the mountains of Jinotega," Kunishi told me.

Because of coffee's importance the inhabitants of El Airo have organized themselves into coffee cooperatives.

In this way, the coffee cooperatives operate as a driving force of the Zapatista movement.

The project is based on the direct trade/relationship coffee model, in which roasters bypass the traditional importing process and source coffee directly from coffee cooperatives and estates.

And as a part of today's global food exchange, a Tanzanian coffee cooperative and Bolivian cacao growers will discuss their work.

Deborah Sobczak, who audits financial institutions in the firm's New York office, helped a coffee cooperative in El Salvador choose appropriate accounting software and revise its pricing process.

Recently, he set up a competition in Kenya among coffee cooperatives and awarded cash prizes to the five best small coffee farmers.

Fair Trade coffee is a result of an international movement that helps businesses buy directly from rural coffee cooperatives, eliminating the corporate middleman and paying farmers double or more the market price.

This was the first direct contract between an American roaster and an African coffee cooperative.