Timor-Leste Partners

 

Members of the ATT farmer collective sorting the coffee cherry prior to pulping.

Who we work with

In Timor-Leste we work at a range of levels to support the development of a more sustainable coffee industry. We are lucky to have Tradewinds volunteers Professor Brett Inder, Dr David Lloyd, and Dr Katy Cornwell working extensively in Timor-Leste and sharing their insights and expertise with Tradewinds.

Evang is the manager of ATT. As well as keeping on top of the administration and export, he works closely with the farmers in the collective.

Tradewinds' partners include:

  • ATT (Alter Trade Timor) - a Timorese run small farmer collective. Headed by Evang …. (a Timorese local) there are 435 farming households from the Ermera district, in the collective. We import our coffee directly from ATT.
  • Peacewinds – a Japanese NGO who have been providing assistance to Timorese coffee farmers since 2002. We are working with Peacewinds to look at the possibility of importing micro-lots of specialty Timor coffee.
  • Institute of Business (IOB)
  • WithOneBean – Our Australian partners who work extensively in Timor on a range of projects. WithOneBean roasts and packages our coffee for us and directs all profits back to their projects in Timor.

 

Why Tradewinds work in Timor-Leste

A growing number of Australians want to support the development of a sustainable economy for Timor-Leste (in English we call it East Timor). Many of us want to give a hand to this close neighbour, a fledgling nation, struggling with very high levels of poverty. At Tradewinds, we’ve been working hard to support coffee producers in Timor for more than 10 years. Over that time we’ve:

  • built long term, sustainable relationships with small-holder coffee farmers in Timor, finding out who’s doing the best work to support farming communities.
  • worked hard to understand how to best support Timorese coffee farmers – buying coffee bean at the highest prices, building new markets, supporting education and training.
  • set ambitious goals to support our partners to improve coffee quality, yields and export markets. We turn seemingly large obstacles into opportunities for learning and development.
  • Established new partnerships so that the work we do can have a greater impact. For example, through our partnership with WithOneBean, additional profits are returned to Timor-Leste to support further work to empower Timorese farmers.

Fast facts about Timor-Leste

Why are we so passionate about our partnerships in Timor?

We are compelled to support Timorese coffee farmers because:

  • Timor-Leste is the poorest nation outside of Sub-Saharan Africa, with short life expectancy, high levels of maternal and infant mortality, and high levels of malnutrition.
  • coffee production is vitally important for many in Timor-Leste. This is because agriculture is the primary source of employment for 84% of the labour force.
  • the average coffee-producing household lives on 31cents per person per day. In the “hungry months”, after the coffee income has run out, 50% of households eat one meal or less per day.
  • a key problem for coffee farmers is the very low coffee yields, which limits their earning capacity. 

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