The next time you buy coffee, make sure you are environmentally aware about where you coffee comes from. The words Fair Trade, Shade-Grown, and Organic are just a couple of buzzwords that are now being used to describe your cup-of-joe. Haven't heard of these words? Here is what they mean: What's shade-grown coffee?

Today is International Day of Rural Women. In honor of the rural women with whom Heifer works, Elizabeth Bintliff, regional director of Heifer's West Africa Program, wrote the following post.

In a move to help Haitian farmers as well as to supply food even more efficiently to the hungry in that country, the international relief and development agency Food For The Poor will start buying rice from 2,000 farmers in the area most affected by the 2010 earthquake. The partnership will begin today and will provide a third of the rice that the charity needs for its feeding programs in Haiti.

In both of the communities in Peru we visited last week, we were treated to traditional music and dancing.

Good Living. That's what Allin Kausay means. It's the name of a Heifer Peru project in the Cusco region of Peru. This project, which is only about five months in, plans to contribute to improved food systems and living conditions for 1,540 families. Heifer does this by helping them plan the management of their resources, implement agroecology, link to local markets, and involve them in processes that impact local and regional policies for rural families.

File photo via Patrick Briggs, Flickr