Fair Trade Organic Coffee

Fair trade organic coffee is created naturally, without the herbicides, pesticides and genocides which have historically accompanied the coveted product.

Coffee is a popular beverage ingested by millions of people worldwide. It ranks second to petroleum in terms of global dollars traded and sustains entire villages within coffee-producing countries, such as Brazil, Columbia, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Mexico.

The United States imports more coffee than any other nation in the world, taking in more than 1,200,000 tons of coffee per year. Conversely, Brazil is the largest coffee export, harvesting nearly one third of the world's coffee and employing more than five million people.

With disproportionate dependence upon each other's industries, abuses in political power and economic leverage have put coffee growers in disadvantaged situations. At times growers are unable to even afford the land where they grow their highly-demanded coffee.

This is where fair trade comes in.

Fair trade is a global movement intended to instill international respect, environmental friendliness and social courteousness. Coffee and tea were the first fairly traded agricultural products to enter the global market.

Fair trade operates on several labor and environmental standards. Coffee must be sold at a fair price, though additional charges are added for organic coffee due to strict purity standards. Coffee must also be directly traded with few or no intermediaries, obtained through sustainable environment-friendly farming and grown through a local community effort.

The first fair trade label was launched in 1988 at the request of Mexican farmers. This labeling initiative allowed independently certified coffee to be sold worldwide in supermarkets for mass consumption, not just in World Markets specializing in fairly-traded products.

Fair trade stipulates that buyers must be committed to long-term relationships with their dealers and products must be bought from democratically-run farms.

Before fair trade, coffee growers were subjected to flagrant mistreatment. For example, though the average price of coffee was around $1 (USD) per pound in the late 1970s, coffee was sold to U.S. companies like Starbucks for a mere 41 cents per pound in 2001. At the same time they were paying significantly lower prices for coffee, Northern companies charged skyrocketing prices for their caffeinated beverages.

According to The World Bank, the coffee crisis of 2002 cost an estimated 540,000 Mexican coffee laborers their jobs. This coffee crunch was instigated by an extreme mark-up in coffee prices and its corresponding drop in the cost of production materials. Coffee-producing villages turned into ghost towns and Mexico City proved a fitting example of this devastation; its sprawling urban development consisted of more than 21 million former coffee-working refugees. Meanwhile, Northern coffee companies recorded soaring profits.

When developing nations export to Northern nations, they are often subjected to extreme tariff barriers up to four times higher than what other Northern countries are expected to pay. These barriers can cost the nation up to $100 billion per year. If the nation already receives aid, this amount is doubled, making it nearly impossible for citizens in a developing nation to earn a living.

Despite its glaring setbacks, the process of fair trade has been exponentially helpful to some societies previously degraded by corrupt profiteers. For example, fair trade coffee is helping Rwanda rebuild its economic base after its devastating 1994 civil conflict and the subsequent genocide of approximately one million people.

Prior to the conflict, coffee was Rwanda' s largest export. Nearly 90 percent of the population works in agriculture. In 2001 USAID created the Partnership for Enhancing Agriculture in Rwanda (PEARL). This project included creating a certification system for coffee laborers, improving production and processing techniques, and developing financing strategies to fund local coffee growers.

Graduates from the University of Rwanda are currently being groomed to take over the nation's coffee corporation, keeping the industry a sustainable source of national income. Through the growth of coffee, the Rwandans are rebuilding the fabric of their country.

Though some criticize the coffee industry's alleged corruption, others recognize the fair trade movement was created with good intentions and has succeeded admirably in elevating the working conditions for coffee farmers around the globe.







Fair Trade is Big Business. Organic Consumer Association. 8 May 2006. 30 Aug. 2006.
Jarman, Janet. Coffee Crisis. MSNBC. 26 Aug. 2002. 29 Aug. 2006.
Ottaway, Anne. Reviving Rwanda. Roast Magazine. April 2004. 30 Aug. 2006.
Wikipedia. 29 Aug. 2006. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade