News & Stories

Donna Kilpatrick is putting her expertise to work as the manager and land steward of Heifer Ranch, a 1,200-acre working farm in Perryville, just 40 miles to the west of Arkansas’ state capital in Little Rock.

From an early age, Amy Smith felt she should use her skills to end poverty. With aptitude and passion for both engineering and international development, Smith committed her professional life to combining the two in a meaningful way, starting D-Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2002.

Given the plight of present-day coffee farmers, one might assume the coffee business is largely unprofitable, perhaps plagued by razor thin margins and floundering demand. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite the bright spot coffee can be in our lives, it has a dark side — a sinister past that has spurred a troubling present. During centuries of global coffee production, a common theme has emerged: the oppression of people of color for profit.