Lawrence Solomon: Fair-trade coffee producers often end up poorer
While I don't want to be ignorant of the way my purchases affect things, fair trade or not, this article burns my blood. It burns my blood because it gives apathetic consumers some ammunition. Having done a lot of research on fair trade coffee, I'm not sure this article is entirely true. Nevertheless, I was already aware of the problem of certification fees. (Most things at Ten Thousand Villages aren't certified because they don't want to impose certification fees on producers.)
If it IS true, what does this mean then? Should we buy regular coffee as the "lesser evil"? Continue buying fair trade coffee despite this article? Look for uncertified fair trade coffee? Boycott the coffee business altogether?
Please comment!
I know lots of people read this thing. Share your opinion!
Augh I have no idea... Second Cup sells 'fairly traded' coffee which apparently conforms to the same standards of fair trade coffee without needing certification. But without certification what guarantee do we have of non-exploitation?
ReplyDeleteIs the Fair Trade Certification organization for-profit? Why is it so expensive?
Ok I'm sitting in Williams and I just bought a Fair Trade coffee out of habit, and when I went to go sip it, this article came to mind again.
ReplyDeleteBut upon reconsidering, I've decided to continue buying Fair Trade coffee.
One reason to do this is to continue holding myself accountable to the standard of people before money, and secondly as a near-daily reminder of the masses of people who are exploited by my very own society, and my role to invest in changing the society which I help comprise.
But beyond the more personal reasons, abandoning ship on a noble cause is never the answer to an obstacle on the road to justice. Obstacles must be met, reckoned with, and defeated so we can continue on the road to justice, along with the Fair Trade 'idealists'.
It's difficult not to become cynical after reading an article like this, especially when most of us don't have the time or resources to go and examine the system ourselves and propose and implement solutions.
However easy it would be to use this article as an excuse to abandon this revolutionary system, it is important for us to stick it out through the bumps and roadblocks on our way to making the capitalist system more peaceful and just.
Besides, as a quick google search just revealed, the president of Fair Trade USA wrote a response letter to the editor of the National Post, which defends the system from a very informed point of view. (New information including but not limited to scholarships for the farmers who can't afford the investment to become certified).
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/fair+judge+Fair+Trade+study/4813825/story.html
Thoughts?