There is a crisis destroying the livelihoods of 25 million coffee producers around the world.  Twenty-seven million acres of land globally are devoted to growing coffee. The price of coffee continues to fall especially for the growers.  

The coffee market is failing.  It is failing producers on small family farms for whom coffee is used to sustain basic existence.  It is failing coffee traders who can no longer make ends meet.  It is failing nations as they are forced further into debt by the health and education pressures placed on them.

The rise of Fair Trade sales in recent years has demonstrated that consumers care about the misery of those who produce the goods they buy.  In many Lutheran congregations, for example, fair traded coffee and tea is drunk at Sunday morning coffee hours and sold to members to brew at home, thanks to organizations such as the Women of the ELCA.  Lutheran World Relief, an international relief agency of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, introduced these church bodies to fair traded coffee five years ago.

The ELCA's Corporate Social Responsibility program, along with similar programs of other faith traditions, advocated to the Procter & Gamble Company regarding fair traded coffee. On September 15, 2003 Procter & Gamble announced that you can now buy one Millstone product that is fairly traded. In addition, the Women of the ELCA have begun to educate the public about the coffee crisis.