The real meaning of Fair Trade coffee
Posted by TheShot on 09 Mar 2006 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Fair Trade
Reason magazine recently published an excellent article on the history of Fair Trade coffee and the complicated web that has evolved around it over the years: Reason: Absolution in Your Cup: The real meaning of Fair Trade coffee by Kerry Howley
Starting at the roots of the American Fair Trade coffee movement — at a 1990 SCAA conference at Oakland’s Claremont Hotel — the article then touches on Reagan-era politics in Central America, the evolving economic crisis of quality coffee production around the world, and the development of higher quality coffee brands. It concludes with the complicated state we have today: where Fair Trade coffee is more popular than ever, and yet where the Fair Trade movement is not exactly succeeding as it was originally intended.
Fair Trade is just one of a number of possible solutions to the problem of quality coffee growers not earning enough to support their farms while low-grade, mass producers depress prices on the overall market. By disintermediating the middle man, the hope was to pay a fair sustainable wage to growers and get the quality stuff directly into the hands of retailers and roasters who sought it out. Afterall, Americans were showing a greater and greater willingness to pay more per cup as growers’ earnings plummeted.
But Fair Trade certification has taken on a life of its own. It has been coopted by many of the corporations who were at first staunchly opposed to it or originally seen as the source of the problem (a little mermaid comes to mind, for one). It has introduced a conform-or-die impetus on other growers, creating new problems and inequities in place of the ones it originally tried to address. (Worst of all are those who have used Fair Trade certification as a public license to engage in other questionable practices.)
Required reading for anyone who thinks they have an obligation to social justice with their morning coffee. A lot of people now swear by and insist upon Fair Trade coffee with blind loyalty — as if not doing so would be an endorsement of Satan himself. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more complicated than that, and Fair Trade certification remains a compromised, flawed system.
As many in the industry describe it to me, “Fair Trade is at least better than nothing … maybe.”
4 Comments »
on 13 Mar 2006 at 5:26 pm PT 1.TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Trip Report: Coffee to the People said …
[...] Coffee to the People is a huge space, a little on the dingy side, with tables covered in socially conscious stickers and artwork: they know how to play to their customers. There is also a reading library with couches and free WiFi. So of course, there are the usual Haightsters sleeping at tables. They roast their own coffee beans in San Rafael — all Fair Trade and organic, of course, as many of their clientele seem to be single-issue coffee drinkers. (Despite Fair Trade certification’s many flaws, many customers here seem to bestow it with a monopoly on ethical behavior.) [...]
on 21 Mar 2006 at 5:27 pm PT 2.TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Do hot coffee and ‘Wobblies’ go together? said …
[...] Starbucks ranked #29 on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list, and they are very sensitive about their brand image and integrity with consumers. This image includes fair employee pay and benefits in addition to socially-friendly causes, such as their adoption of Fair Trade coffees and recycled paper cups. [...]
on 15 Apr 2006 at 3:54 pm PT 3.TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Growing coffee: It’s black, no sugar said …
[...] For example, a recent survey by the World Bank estimates that 540,000 laborers in Central America have lost their jobs because of coffee’s low market price. Fair Trade coffee is proposed as one solution to put more of coffee’s profits into the hands of the growers (instead of the middlemen), but Fair Trade certification can become its own kind of monopoly. [...]
on 29 Dec 2006 at 11:53 am PT 4.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Does “Fair Trade” imply everything else is “Unfair Trade”? said …
[...] “Look for the Fair Trade label” seems like the most obvious, simplistic strategy for the consumer who can only scratch the surface of this issue — in a busy life full of dizzyingly complex ethical consumer decisions. However, Fair Trade has also hurt a number of other coffee producers who hold practices at least as ethical and sustainable (locking them out of access to certain markets, placing conform-or-perish ultimatums on some family farms, etc.). Furthermore, Fair Trade itself is also rife with problems. For example, earlier this year, the London Financial Times reported on several problems with Fair Trade, including weak enforcement of certification, allowing farmers to plant in protected rainforests, and certifying growers who do not pay their employees a living wage. [...]