JAS Italy is pleased to announce involvement in a large project with Movement Shalom, a non-profit organization with Catholic inspiration (ONLUS). Based in Tuscany, the movement is one of 56 associations recognized by the Italian Government as an authoritative body in the field of organizing the activities of volunteers who have varying political and religious orientations.

The movement organizes humanitarian missions, including planning large projects in the Third World. The particular mission in which JAS participated was focused on the transport of fresh green beans from Burkina Faso (Western Africa) to Italy. It all started in early December 2007, when JAS Italy management flew to European hubs and to Burkina Faso in order to negotiate directly with the airlines after making the commitment to working with Movement Shalom and Coop Italia.

Green beans are cultivated by local farmers on a "fair trade" basis: each farmer owns 800 square meters of fields, where he raises two harvests of beans in one season. The farmers, in turn, are part of local cooperatives adhering to Movement Shalom’s requirements: vegetables are divided into first and second choice categories, then kept refrigerated at 5° C and sent to the shelves of the Italian supermarket chain Coop.

This huge campaign has seen JAS involved with 22 flights – up to three per week – between Ouagadougu and Italy. The campaign started in January 2008 and ended two months later, in March 2008. Each flight carried between 18 and 20 tons of green beans; the entire project saw 400 tons of green beans being moved from Burkina Faso to Italy.

JAS is proud of having worked on this implementation of the "short chain distribution" principle, which allows local families to earn half a Euro for each kilo of picked beans.