Fair Trade Coffee: The How and the Why
Better late than never: October was Fair Trade Month, and according to Trans Fair USA, the only third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States, a good place to look at the impact of non-fair trade certified products is in the most commonplace of household staples: coffee.
The world’s second largest traded commodity, because of a surplus in production and a collapse of a marketing agreement that was in place until 1989, the price of coffee has dropped by 50% to the lowest in 30 years, leaving many of its farmers destitute.
And while 90% of the world’s coffee is grown by large corporations that clear cut the forest cover in order to expose the plants to full sun (then spray them with pesticides and fertilizers), the remaining 10 percent is grown for the specialty market.
Of this small percentage, an even smaller percentage is fair trade certified, which means that the coffee is shade-grown by small family farms and cooperatives which receive a minimum of $1.21 ($1.51 if it’s organic) a pound for the beans, as well as access to health care, sustainable and organic farming education programs, education and more.
If it takes approximately 20 beans to make a cup of coffee, and a coffee tree yields about 2,000 beans per year, the average java junkie is consuming the fruit of about six trees each year.
Make those trees fair trade certified, and we can grow that 10%—and do a whole lot of good.
Go to the Shop section and check out retailers, restaurants and cafes that offer fair trade options. At Peet’s, Seattle’s Best and Starbuck’s you just have to ask for the fair trade blend. Dunkin’ Donuts is all fair, all the time. Who knew?
