The stated purpose of “Fair Trade”
coffee is to improve conditions for the farmers. If that ever was the
true intent, then it has failed so far. Until recently I thought that
this was simply caused by typical economic ignorance and
shortsightedness but some recent events are making me suspect that
the creators of this scheme never intended it to help anyone other
than the large corporate producers and their foreign investors.
At first glance, on paper, the idea of
fair trade seems reasonable. Improving pay and benefits for workers,
increasing yields for farmers and getting them a fair price for their
product is a wonderful idea. Here is where the economic ignorance I
mentioned comes into play though. One of the main causes of the low
price paid to farmers for coffee is simply that there is a lot of
coffee. More coffee is grown than can be sold. Arbitrarily fixing a
higher price was never going to solve this.
And then there is the issue of
certification itself. To be certified as “fair trade” producers
must meet certain minimums for pay and benefits of their workers as
well as adopting certain farming techniques. The large corporate
producers are able to afford this much more easily than the small
family farmers. The corporate latifundia also have ready access to
the certification agencies and the small farmers don't. This has
created a situation where the corporate producers get easily
certified and the small farmers find it nearly impossible. The small
family farmers are being driven out of the industry entirely in
favour of the large, foreign-backed, corporate producers.
I noticed this problem a few years ago
and thought that a possible solution for helping these small farmers
get certified and get access to markets buying fair trade coffee
would be for a company, preferably a co-op of the farmers themselves,
to be formed to act as a distributor and assist them in getting
certified. Most of these farmers hadn't the resources to setup a
co-op but several companies have since cropped up to do exactly that.
They buy certified fair trade coffee from hundreds of these small
farmers and bring it to market, allowing the small farmers to compete
with the larger producers. The negative trend is being reversed, and
the people this was meant to help are starting to benefit from it.
Here's what really gets my goat. Now the advocates of fair trade have
started a boycott of these companies and their coffee because
according to them it's not “real” fair trade. I don't see any
distinction between this and the so-called “real” fair trade
coffee. These small producers have all gone through the same
certifications as the big producers, their workers get the same pay
and they use the same farming techniques. The only difference I can
see is that “real” fair trade only benefits corporate latifundia
at the expense of the small farmers. This is where I start to think
that maybe helping the farmers and workers was never the real intent.
I'm not suggesting that anyone give up
on buying fair trade coffee. I did want to point out some of the
political nonsense and misconceptions behind the idea however. For
myself I've started looking a little more closely at how the coffee I
select is sourced and favouring small producers rather than simply
choosing fairly traded coffee. I see this as doing my own small part to keep "fair trade" fair. It turns out that I've found some
excellent coffees that are truly delicious this way too.
I didn't cite any sources because I
want to encourage anyone who is curious to do their own research. The
information is easily found and it always seems much more real when
you find it for yourself. I offer my take on the issue and hope that
you'll do some digging of your own. If you find anything I overlooked
or you have a strong argument for me, I'd be grateful if you'd leave
a comment.
