Starbucks and other retailers wake up to Fair trade coffee

Salt shakers
October 2000

Starbucks and other retailers wake up to Fair trade coffee
Responding to inquiries from consumers and increasing pressure from advocacy groups such as Global Exchange, Starbucks, Green Mountain Coffee, Peet's Coffee and Tea, Dean's Beans, and 78 other gourmet coffee sellers have agreed to start a line of coffee purchased from farmers in the developing world under "fair trade" regulations. Those regulations include paying farmers at least $1.26 per pound regardless of how low prices on the coffee market drops, and paying growers at least 60 percent of the cost prior to shipment.

The companies have signed on to fair trade through the efforts of Oxfam America and Transfair America, a nonprofit organization that promotes fair trade food imports. "We think that, one cup at a time, we can make an enormous difference in the communities that are the poorest in the world," said Oxfam's board president Barbara Fiorito. The nation's two largest coffee importers, Maxwell House and Folgers, have not signed on to the fair trade agreement.

Like many of the commodities exported out of poor farming communities in the developing world, coffee prices have experienced a prolonged slump in recent years. Coffee farmers often make less in a day selling their beans to U.S. importers than the $2 or $3 it can cost to buy a cup of gourmet coffee.

"It's not enough to live on, and a little too much to die on," said Rob Everts of Equal Exchange, a worker-owned cooperative that has been selling fair trade coffee and other fair trade commodities since 1986.

Fair trade coffee has been widely sold in Canada for three years and in Europe for about 10 years, but an official certification process for fair trade goods only came to the US in the summer of 1999, when the California-based TransFairUSA began certifying small and medium-sized roasters around the country who wanted to offer fair trade coffee. Starbucks agreed to begin carrying fair trade beans in April 2000, three days before planned protests in 30 cities were to launch a grassroots campaign against the giant coffee retailer.

Coffee is the second most valuable commodity traded in the world and the second largest US import after oil. Americans spend $18 billion a year on coffee. The US consumes an estimated one-fifth of all the world's coffee, making it the largest consumer of coffee in the world. But, according to San Francisco-based Global Exchange, few Americans realize that agriculture workers in the coffee industry often toil in what can be described as "sweatshops in the fields."

Over half of the world's coffee is produced on small family farms with only a few acres of coffee trees. Fair trade certification provides a way for these farmers to increase their incomes by helping them organize into cooperatives and linking them directly to coffee importers.

The world price for coffee usually hovers around $1 per pound, but most farmers earn less than half that figure since they are forced to sell to exploitative middlemen. Many small coffee farmers receive prices for their coffee that are less than the costs of production, forcing them into a cycle of poverty and debt. Intensive coffee farming also leads to environmental problems such as deforestation and song bird habitat destruction, and the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on large-scale coffee plantations contributes to air and water pollution.

According to Global Exchange, fair trade helps correct these imbalances by guaranteeing a premium over the prevailing price being paid for coffee on the international market and encouraging organic and sustainable cultivation methods that are safer for communities. Advocates say joining a fair trade network helps farmers in developing world coffee producing regions such as Africa, Chiapas, Guatemala, and Indonesia afford basic health care, education, and housing improvements for their families and farms. In addition, fair trade improves farmers' economic stability by encouraging importers to extend financial credit to cooperatives and to develop long-term trading relationships.

Fair trade certified coffee currently benefits 500,000 farming families in 20 countries; higher US demand for fair trade coffee would dramatically increase that number.

Fair trade supporters in the US say they plan on turning their attention soon to certifying other products and foodstuffs. Already consumers in Europe can purchase fair trade certified goods including bananas, sugar, tea, honey, and cocoa. In the coming few years fair trade supporters hope to introduce socially responsible chocolate and tea to the US market. Fair trade activists around the country—who include students, religious groups and labor unions—plan to continue pressuring Starbucks to offer in-store brewed fair trade coffee. The cafe chain currently sells only fair trade whole bean coffee.

"While Starbucks' commitment to fair trade is an important moment for the fair trade movement, it is merely the first step in creating a truly socially responsible and environmentally sustainable global economy," says Medea Benjamin, Global Exchange's Founding Director. "Someday we hope every American will find it intolerable to purchase anything made at the expense of human dignity or the environment, and that businesses will offer consumers a full range of fair trade products."

Starbucks started selling its fair trade coffee for $11.45 per pound in 2,300 stores on Oct. 4. It will also market its "fair trade" blend at participating university sites nationwide. Peet's offers its fair trade coffee for $10.95. Equal Exchange sells its coffee for $8.99. Equal Exchange is the only company at which 100 percent of the coffee meets fair trade standards.

Buy Fair Trade Coffee from Cafe Mam or Equal Exchange
Other places to buy Fair Trade Coffee How you can help keep the pressure on coffee retailers

Contact Maxwell House corporate parent Kraft or Folgers (Procter & Gamble) and let them know how you feel about Fair Trade Coffee (Don't forget to check off on form boxes or radio buttons at the "small print" bottom of the contact pages if you don't want to receive direct mail campaigns from these consumer products giants!!)

More information on Fair Trade
Alternatives for simple living
Ethical Consumer magazine (from England)
Fair Trade Federation
Global Exchange

Fair Trade (ethical) shopping resources on the Internet
AFL-CIO Do buy and Don't buy page
Center of Concern's Alternative Mall
Ethicalshopper.com
Fair Trade Federation's online catalog list—many internet options.
Fair Trade Federation's retail store list—shops near you.
Global Exchange
Maya Traditions
PEOPlink
SERRV International
The Shopping Mall for green and ethical goods—Not-for-profit organizations across Europe.
Ten Thousand Villages

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