Farmers question value of ‘responsible’ coffees
Posted by TheShot on 08 Sep 2006 | Tagged as: Beans, Fair Trade
With coffee prices reaching new highs, suddenly the premiums that organic and Fair Trade coffee beans used to command are dwindling in comparison to the additional overhead required of growers. Or so suggests an article today from Reuters: Reuters AlertNet - FEATURE-Farmers question value of ‘responsible’ coffees.
The article points out that coffee farmers that follow these ‘responsible’, sustainable practices are promised more of a consistent, living wage — rather than a guarantee of profit sharing in an up market for coffee commodities trading.
But to make matters worse and more confusing in the area of Fair Trade, today London’s The Financial Times published a couple of articles that questioned the worker wages and authenticity behind some coffees that carry the Fair Trade seal of approval:
- Euro2day :: ‘Ethical’ coffee workers paid below legal minimum
- Euro2day :: The bitter cost of ‘fair trade’ coffee
Things have gotten so questionable, in fact, that Intelligentsia Coffee in Chicago — one of the premier, high-quality, smaller-batch roasters in North America — recently stopped working with Fairtrade for their certified coffees.
UPDATE: Sept. 18, 2006
The Los Angeles Times also picked up on this issue in an article today: Fairtrade Coffee Not Living Up to Label in Peru - Los Angeles Times. It also notes the Financial Times discovery that some Fair Trade coffees are being illegally planted in protected rainforests.
3 Comments »
on 15 Sep 2006 at 2:25 pm PT 1.TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Trip Report: Lettüs Café Organic said …
[...] I recently saw TV chef/personality, Anthony Bourdain, speak at the Commonwealth Club about (among other things) the subject of the organics movement. Pretty much his take, like my own, is that organics is only as good as the quality of the food it produces [starting at 28′ in the linked audio track]. Quality is much easier to verify than ideology or pedigree, given the recent woes with Fair Trade certification. So if the quality isn’t there, the organics label is worthless to me. [...]
on 29 Dec 2006 at 11:55 am PT 2.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. [...]
on 04 Jun 2007 at 1:26 pm PT 3.Espresso News and Reviews - TheShot.coffeeratings.com » Trip Report: Barefoot Coffee Roasters said …
[...] One of the things I really like about Barefoot is that they don’t succumb to the latest popularized specialty coffee trends. For example, some baristas have recently glommed on to the (not-so-new) Cup of Excellence phenomenon — as if Cup of Excellence-competing coffees have a monopoly on unique, distinctive, high-quality flavor profiles. But Barefoot knows there is plenty more out there to choose from, like Finca Hartmann. (We’ve arguably witnessed a similar phenomenon in the past year with socio/eco-conscious types discovering Fair Trade coffees en masse and attributing it with a monopoly on ethical and sustainable growing practices — putting a blind eye to Fair Trade’s many shortcomings and problems.) [...]