By Tom Hanlon-Wilde, Equal Exchange West Coast Sales Manager
Back in May, Tom Hanlon-Wilde wrote a post about a trip to Peru he was taking with the General Managers of West Coast natural foods stores to visit a community they had first gone to visit ten years ago. Since that time, Tom and the store managers have kept up a strong relationship with these coffee farmers who are all members of COCLA, one of Equal Exchange’s longest trading partners in Peru. During the ten years that have passed between trips, several of the farmers have come to the U.S. to visit the General Managers, tour their stores, and learn about this side of the coffee market: a true exchange!
Click here to see a video that was made about this trip.
Small Farmers. Big Change. 
Sounds similar to a trip I took roughly 10 years ago when I was researching the Maca crop. I went to Cerro de Pasco in the Andes to talk with the farmers and find organic land which could be SKAL certified for exports.
I had fun and more importantly gained valuable info regarding growth and processing of the maca from it’s tuber to a final product such as powder, gelatinized powder, pills, extract and concentrated powder extracts.