Fair trade justice with that cup of Joe?

Social justice news
December 2003

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Fair trade justice with that cup of Joe?
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Fair trade justice with that cup of Joe?
Catholic Relief Services today launched its CRS Coffee Project, an ambitious plan to boost consumption of fair trade coffee by directly marketing the coffee to the 65 million Catholics in the United States.

The CRS Coffee Project has a two-pronged objective:

1.To support struggling coffee farmers around the world by raising awareness of unfair trade practices, increasing the demand for high-quality coffee bought at more stable, fair prices and helping farmers diversify their crops and meet high coffee quality standards.

2.To give U.S. Catholics the opportunity to live out their faith, which calls them not only to learn about the injustices that exist around the world but also to actively work for justice and support of the poor.

"If there are more people in other countries like the United States willing to buy our coffee at a better price, then we may yet survive these difficult times," said Encarnacion Suarez, a 60-year-old coffee farmer in Nicaragua who participated in the press conference today. "We could then improve our home, the children could eat better, enjoy better health and attend school."

CRS coffee will be supplied through the Interfaith Coffee Program of Equal Exchange Inc., a Canton, Massachusetts-based fair trade company. The coffee, in turn, will be sold primarily through parishes that participate in the program. The coffee will also be available through CRS Fair Trade website at www.CRSFairTrade.org.

The program doesn't just sell fair trade coffee, however. It also educates consumers about how current trade policies create an uneven playing field for smaller, poorer countries in the world market. The program also has an advocacy component that offers guidance on how Catholics here can campaign for positive change and give voice to the needs and concerns of coffee farmers like Doña Suarez who are struggling to put food on the table and provide an education for their children.

"The CRS Coffee Project is the first among what we hope will be many wide-reaching, national programs that connect Catholics in the United States to the people we serve around the world who are struggling to get the basic necessities for life: adequate nutrition, education, medicine," said Joan Neal, CRS deputy executive director of U.S. Operations. "As the largest organized denomination in the U.S., Catholics collectively can have a direct, substantial impact on the lives of small-scale coffee farmers by taking a simple step: choosing fair trade coffee."

Another advantage of the CRS Coffee Project: A percentage of every pound of fair trade coffee purchased will go back to the farmers through the CRS Small Farmer Fund, a standing resource that supports agriculture and long-term development.

The plight of coffee farmers

· In recent years, overproduction of low-grade coffee caused a plummet in prices on the world market. Coffee fell from a high of $1.40 per pound in 1999 to a low of just 45 cents in 2001. Many farmers have reported receiving as little as 15 to 20 cents per pound of coffee.

· The crisis—the worst in 30 years—resulted in entire corps left to rot on coffee bushes in Kenya and Guatemala; 30,000 farm jobs slashed just before El Salvador's harvest season; farms held for generations in Nicaragua were abandoned or sold and families moved to urban shantytowns in search of work.

· Nicaragua, for example, historically produced 200 million pounds of coffee annually; over the past two years, however, the levels of production dove to an estimated 70 million pounds this year.

How Fair Trade helps

· Fairly traded coffee helps offset some of the devastation by paying a guaranteed a minimum price for coffee purchased directly from the farmers —$1.26 per pound of conventionally grown coffee and $1.41 per pound for organic.

· Companies like Equal Exchange purchase directly from farmers, cutting out several layers of middlemen who would otherwise take a cut in already meager returns for coffee. As a result, Equal Exchange paid over $1.5 million to small-scale farmers in above-market premiums last year. That's income farmers would never have received otherwise.

· More than 7,000 places of worship across all denominations have participated in Equal Exchange's Interfaith Coffee Program. Last year, those communities purchased over 118 tons of fairly traded coffee. There are 19,000 Catholic parishes in the United States.

For more information (from U.S. Catholic):
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