The New Coffee Crisis

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Jan 04, 2011 at 12:57:26 PM PST

For farmer co-ops at this moment, the challenge is more immediate. As local middlemen are willing to buy coffee for prices at or above what FT roasters and importers are willing to pay, they are gaining a foothold on local coffee markets. This inevitably weakens farmer cooperatives as growers sell outside the co-op and co-ops are in turn unable to deliver on coffee contracts with buyers.

To give you some background, recall that part of a Fair Trade agreement means forming a coffee growers cooperative to sell your coffee through. This is, of course, in many ways a good thing for the growers. But back several years ago when coffee prices hit rock bottom and Fair Trade prices were significantly higher than what a coffee grower could otherwise get, there was much more reason for the growers to actually sell through their cooperatives. Now, with high prices and a relatively small fair trade premium, the incentive is smaller.

What the Just Coffee article doesn't mention is that the "middlemen" (coyotes) outside of the fair trade system pay the growers immediately for their beans. You hand over the beans and they hand you cash. A cooperative might not pay the growers until much later. So even if Fair Trade offers a modest premium to the growers, the value of cash in their hand immediately might still lure them to sell to a coyote.

Just Coffee says:

At this point the challenge to the fair traders is one that should be embraced. For too long fair trade marketing has focused almost exclusively on the increased prices paid to farmers. Now we must focus on the other components of the FT philosophy such as pre-financing, long-term relationships, and other forms of cooperation while also staying above the world price. This will most certainly create a challenge for "low bar players" who have maximized their marketing based on the higher prices that they paid to growers, but who also have not generally delved very deeply into the pieces of FT that go beyond their dollars.

They then go on to address yet another challenge - the climate crisis. Strange weather patterns have played a role in the decrease of supply (and devastating losses to growers) and increase in coffee prices lately. Will that continue? Or get worse? To me, the climate crisis is the real problem here. Prices so high that a fair trade program isn't needed is a blessing - if they last. But if the prices are only high because the coffee growers are having their crops wiped out, that's a problem. A big problem. Especially if weather patterns remain like this or get worse.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 8, Part 1 - Macaws and Chocolate

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Nov 01, 2010 at 00:01:40 AM PDT

Our eighth day began with an unexpected wildlife sighting and a slight delay due to a torrential downpour. Then we visited El Ceibo chocolate cooperative, had lunch and a tour at ECOTOP (an agroforestry operation), and made the long, bathroomless drive back to Rurrenabaque.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

Bolivia Diaries: Day 7, Part 6 - This is Where Coffee Comes From

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Oct 30, 2010 at 15:00:00 PM PDT

On our seventh day of the trip, we drove through a coffee-growing region. This is a just simple photo diary with pictures of the town.

My trip was organized by Global Exchange and Food First. You can find out about future Food Sovereignty tours at the link.

Fair Trade Coffee Recommendation

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Mar 01, 2010 at 19:12:00 PM PST

I told them I wanted to buy a few pounds of coffee, and then asked their recommendations for which kind to get. The entire staff broke out in unanimous gushing over the Ethiopia Yirgacheffe. They said it's the best crop they've ever gotten. So I got a bag of it. And... it's fantastic. It's a light roast and it's absolutely delicious coffee. Plus, the growers were paid $2.62 per pound, which is significantly above the Fair Trade minimum price.

If you want to buy it online at Just Coffee's site, go to Purchase and then navigate to the third page of coffees. The coffees are listed alphabetically and the Yirgacheffe is last.

How Fair is Fair Trade Coffee?

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Feb 23, 2010 at 11:16:01 AM PST

Fortunately, this was not the case. What I found is that, in general, Fair Trade is a good thing. How good depends on where you buy your Fair Trade coffee from. I wrote this up on Alternet in a recent article called "Does Fair Trade Coffee Lift Growers Out of Poverty or Simply Ease Our Guilty Conscience?" I invite you to take a look at it, but I can sum up my recommendations on choosing a Fair Trade coffee here:

1. If you already buy specialty coffee (i.e. not Maxwell House or Folgers), then it won't cost you extra to buy Fair Trade. The Fair Trade prices I examined - even from roasters who pay growers well above the Fair Trade price - was no higher than prices charged by Starbucks for non-Fair Trade coffees.

2. Buy from a roaster that ONLY sells Fair Trade, not from one who sells only a fraction of their coffee as Fair Trade.

3. If you really want to know how strong a roaster's commitment to Fair Trade is, check their website. The most committed Fair Trade roasters actually visit their growers and often post pictures of them on their websites. They are very familiar with the growers' quality of life as well as the impact we have on them - and they likely care deeply about this.

4. Some Fair Trade roasters actually pay more than the Fair Trade minimum price. One example of this is Just Coffee in Madison, WI (and they also make great coffee!). Each bag of coffee lists how much the grower was paid on it, and their website breaks down the price of their coffee so that you know how much goes to the grower vs. what it costs to print the label, roast the coffee, cover the roaster's overhead, etc.

My Visit to Equal Exchange

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Aug 25, 2009 at 21:33:08 PM PDT

Equal Exchange is a company I have personally bought products from in the past (both chocolate and coffee), and I'm certainly an advocate of Fair Trade products. However, I'd prefer to continue advocating for ethical business models and sustainable practices without endorsing specific companies in exchange for a bit of free food. That wouldn't be honest to blog readers, and it probably wouldn't even make for very interesting blog content. On the other hand, we do need businesses like Equal Exchange as part of our movement, both because they provide us with Fair Trade products (so we can eat cocoa and know it wasn't harvested by child slaves) and because we want businesses weighing in on our side of political issues.

That said... here are a few pics and some details on my visit with Equal Exchange.

Sampler Platter

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Mar 12, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PDT

• Natasha Chart tells us where bananas come from.

• Civil Eats reviews several arguments on why we need to eat fewer animals. What I find interesting is that those quoted - Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman - aren't advocates for vegetarianism. They are just saying if you eat animals, it's a good idea to eat less of them. Clearly, this is not the moral argument for vegetarianism that people are used to (if eating meat is murder, then "eating less meat" isn't the answer). Pollan and Bittman are more into health and environmental reasons for eating lower on the food chain.

• Eating Liberally asks Why Ridicule Risotto? After Michelle Obama's high profile visit to a food kitchen, some conservatives are making fun of her for serving yuppie food - risotto - to the hungry. First off, why is real food considered yuppie food? First it was arugula and now this. What's appropriate to feed the hungry instead? Twinkies? Big Macs? If you're going to help them, help them with something healthy and hearty, not with crap.

• While I couldn't find very much about the new FDA head, Margaret Hamburg, and her stance on food issues, I did find praise for Hamburg from Marion Nestle. To me, that says it all.

• Obama Foodorama announces that Michael Osterholm will NOT lead the USDA's food safety inspection service. Yes!

• A lovely report by the BBC says that fair trade can help farms in countries hit by the food crisis.

• Tom Philpott is an excellent writer and a farmer... but who knew that he's also a beer connoisseur?

• Ha! Ezra Klein says: "I've been a kid. You could have built me a race car out of kale and I wouldn't have chosen to touch the thing. The children of America do not cry out for salad bars." SO RIGHT! I'm always shocked when articles about healthy food in schools bring up salad bars and say that the kids actually eat it. I'm a foodie and I STILL hate salad bars.

• Some sad but expected news: as unemployment rises, so does the number of people who need food stamps.

Teatime Sampler Platter

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jan 28, 2009 at 14:22:09 PM PST

• FarmFoody.org launches, providing foodies, farmers, and chefs with a new, interactive social networking (or should we call it edible networking?) tool. The site reminds me of Eat Well Guide but allows users to upload videos or receive bulletins from their favorite farms.
• The EU Parliament Voted by a Large Majority to ban 22 pesticides and tighten when and where the others can be used.
• The Center for a Livable Future proposes a solution to contaminated food: local, sustainable agriculture.
• Canadians are ahead of their time, apparently. On January 23, Liberal Members of Parliament hosted community meetings about food policy. They hope to create a comprehensive food policy for Canada. (There is no place that I know of that has a comprehensive food policy, so this is HUGE if they can pull it off.)
• We've been able to buy foreign Fair Trade products for years, but we now have domestic fair trade too! From the group's press release:

  DFTA is a coalition of 35 businesses, including marketing and retail coops, farmer, farmworker and indigenous peoples associations, and civil society organizations devoted to organic agriculture and coop development. In addition to Organic Valley, DFTA counts among its members the Northeast Organic Farming Association, Equal Exchange, the White Earth Land Recovery Project, Centro Campesino, CATA, the Rural Advancement Foundation International, the Organic Consumers Association, the Farmer Direct Coop, and the National Cooperative Grocers Association.

Why Do We Need Fair Trade Coffee?

by: webuyitgreen

Fri Aug 22, 2008 at 08:50:49 AM PDT

By WeBuyItGreen: promoting green living and fair trade

This is the first in a five-part series of articles that compare three alternatives to the traditional coffee trade industry:  fair trade, direct trade, and Starbucks' C.A.F.E. program.  However, before we compare these three alternatives to one another, let's take a look at why fair trade coffee was created in the first place.  What conditions in the traditional coffee industry have created the need for fair trade, or some alternative that resembles it?

Can We talk Quinoa?

by: DebtorsPrison

Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 19:28:01 PM PDT

Although it might not be local, you can still feel pretty righteous eating quinoa.  It has outstanding nutritional value, is gluten-free, and in many cases is organically produced by fair-trade co-ops of indigenous Quechua and Aymara farmers in the Andes.

So follow me below the fold for a longer look at this excellent edible...