Caffeine with a Conscience

I can use that slogan from Donkey because I invented it. So there.

Now...on to the topic of the day....Fair Trade Coffee.

You've probably heard the term somewhere. But what does it mean and why is it significant?

Well, first of all there is a coffee crisis, as involved people have been calling it. There is a crisis destroying the livelihoods of 25 million coffee producers around the world. The price of coffee has fallen by around 30 per cent (in real terms) in the past 15 years to a 100-year low. Long-term prospects are grim.

Many developing-country coffee farmers, mostly poor smallholders, now sell their coffee beans for less than they cost to produce – only 60 per cent of production costs in Viet Nam’s Dak Lak Province, for example.

The coffee crisis has become a development disaster whose impacts will be felt for a long time. Families dependent on the money generated by coffee are pulling their children, especially girls, out of school. Many can no longer afford basic medicines, and are cutting back on food.
The economies in coffee-growing countries are suffering. Government funds are being squeezed dry, putting pressure on health and education and forcing countries further into debt. Of the total value of the global coffee market ten years ago one third used to go to coffee producing countries. This has now fallen to just 10% of the total value of the coffee market today. Over the last five years the value of coffee exports has fallen by US$4 billion; compare this with total debt repayments by Honduras, Viet Nam, and Ethiopia in 1999 and 2000 of US$4.7 billion.


What is Fairtrade?

The term Fairtrade refers to an independently audited certification and labelling system for products, (certified products are labelled with the logo to the right) which ensures that the farmers and workers producing the product are paid a fair return for their work.
Fairtrade is about giving poor farmers and communities a fair go by:
-paying farmers and workers a fair price for their work helping them gain the skills and knowledge they need to develop their businesses in the global economy
-providing a certification and labelling system to ensure Fairtrade standards are met and that the benefits of Fairtrade get back to the farmer who grew the coffee

Fairtrade also means farmers and communities:

using improved environmental methods for growing coffee establishing democratic associations or co-operatives to undertake local community development projects with the proceeds of Fairtrade resulting in local health services, credit schemes and improvements to local schools have access to low cost credit and technical assistance.

WHAT CAN YOU DO:

Buy Fairtrade Coffee
Ask your coffee shop to sell it
Ask your grocer to carry it.

More info: http://www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/mtf/coffee/coffeecrisis/index.html