The old adage ‘give a man a fish, feed him for a day – teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime’ is a well-used one, but is no less potent because of the truth behind it.

This is something that Eric Harrison probably believes in, when you learn about his attempts to help Honduran coffee farmers.

As reported in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Harrison has put his chemical engineering degree to very good use.

He obtained the qualification at Montana State University and spent only 3 years in a traditional role as a nuclear engineer at the Department of Defense, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, before deciding that he was destined to make a different contribution towards life.

He joined the Peace Corps and travelled to Honduras where he managed to help the locals with his skills.

What did they do?

They designed and helped the villagers to build clean water systems.

This made a significant difference to the health of the locals.

While he was there, he designed more than 20 such systems, which could affect more than 10,000 people.

Harrison also wanted to help the local farmers to help themselves.

He was concerned that the coffee farmers were paying too much of their hard-earned profits to middle men – it is suggested that they were only making something in the region of 3 cents for a $3 cup of coffee sold in the US.

Harrison worked to put together a coffee cooperative of some 150 farmers, so that they could pool their resources.

As such, they were able to process and roast their own coffee, rather than handing over the raw beans to a middleman. In this way, they could make more money. Now, it is reported that the farmers can make $5 per bag of their Eco Café coffee, rather than $1.50-$2 for the raw beans in a bag.