FIRSTHAND
a student-centered cooperative
FIRSTHAND is a student-centered cooperative founded by food justice activists at
West Virginia University. Young people engaging in questions of fair trade and
ethical food supply chains organized the fairtrade 2.0 student group on campus
in 2010, raising funds through fair trade coffee sales to support cooperative
development projects on coffee farms in Central America. Students also organized
to protest the corporatization of the university foodscape petitioning WVU Dining
Services to drop their contract with Starbucks Coffee and instead leverage the
consumptive and institutional power of the university to grow the impact of investments
into alternative economic relationships between producers and consumers. Since
2013, FIRSTHAND has been the flagship coffee at WVU. The cooperative also partners
with farmers, local businesses, community organizations and political movements
across West Virginia to support the development of solidarity economies, cooperatives
and educational programming that builds more diverse, resilient and people
centered food economies
In Spring 2021, in partnership with the WVU Geography Engagement Program, FIRSTHAND
fostered a cooperative experiment with New Roots Community Farm to raise funds
for a multi-farm and multi-stakeholder effort to build a diverse agricultural
system in the New River Gorge region by addressing one of the greatest challenges
faced by young farmers - secure, affordable, and equitable access to land.
In partnership with the West Virginia Agrarian Commons, FIRSTHAND and New Roots
developed the Commons Blossom blend sales of which raised $3,400 in support
of the purchase of the 82 acre Whitlock farm in Fayette County, and $2,000
in support of cooperative economies in Nicaragua. Two of the current New Roots
Farmers contributed to the early development of Fairtrade 2.0 and FIRSTHAND
cooperative while they were students at WVU. Artist Katie Shelly designed the
commons blossom labels which represent the state and national flowers of West
Virginia and Nicaragua.
Firsthand Values
Informational video
Image Gallery
