I dropped by Groundwork Coffee a couple days ago, to hang out with my friend Jeff (a little frazzled, left), and to check out their fair trade selections. A local coffee company, Groundwork boasts on its website about their “environmentally friendly, fair trade, shade-grown, and organic coffees.”
“All of it’s fair trade,” said the cashier. Cool. I got a decaf and a vegan banana choc chip muffin.
Then I noticed that none of the bags of coffee had the fair trade certification label. And a poster announced Groundwork Coffee’s fair trade-ness — but carefully omitted the word certified.
This wouldn’t've set off any bells had I not recently run into AH!Laska’s claim about buying their chocolate from “fair trade sources.” I dug through AH!Laska’s site to find out what these sources were — at the very bottom of their FAQ, AH!Laska’s admitted: “We support the principles of fair trade. However, our products do not have fair trade certification.”
Which I took as a total cop out — using the good name of fair trade without actually putting money down on getting stickered. I’ve said before that the FT label is the only way consumers can be sure that everyone in the coffee supply chain actually got paid as promised.
So I emailed Groundwork last night. Are you fair trade certified?
Ric, COO of Groundwork, shot back this morning: No.
But he also gave me his cell phone number, and invited me to visit: “I am personally and professionally open to being convinced that I am wrong, and am waiting for a compelling argument that will change my outlook to be delivered,” he wrote.
Wow. A challenge.
To prep, I did more research — Why do seemingly socio-enviromentally concerned coffee companies choose not to get fair trade certified? It’s seems pretty clear, judging from both Ric’s openness about the business model and the work put into the website describing the company’s relationship with farmers, that Groundwork cares about compensating their coffee farmers fairly. But apparently, Ric has concerns that’re holding him back from fair trade certification. And he said in his email they’re not finance-related (There is a fee to get certified).
This took me to Jeremiah Pick, a coffee roasting company, whose open letter about fair trade coffee was both moving and illuminating. Some of JP’s coffee is fair trade, but not all, for these reasons:
1. Less than 1% of all coffee growers in the world are fair trade farmers; the rest must sell their coffee in the world market.
2. To get fair trade certified, growers MUST be part of a cooperative, non-centralized organization. This eliminates any coffee grower that owns his or her own business.
3. Growers have to go through a farm inspection to get certified, but sometimes growers are made to wait as long as a year for the inspector to come around.
“The reality remains that for every Fair Trade grower, there are numerous impoverished others that for economic, social, geographical or circumstantial reasons cannot become certified…. Mandating a particular method of accomplishing these goals and trying to define what is “fair” will only narrow the number of people who benefit from our efforts and potentially diminish its long-term effects,” opined JP.
Could this be true?
To find out, I called Transfair, the group that does fair trade certification for the US, and caught Christina five minutes before she went out the door.
The short answer: Yes. Why? The main issues, it seems, are Transfair’s (and FLO’s — FLO is the international group, of which Transfair’s like the US branch) limited resources, both in terms of money and (wo)manpower. To maximize both, it seems FLO puts their efforts toward those actions that will produce the most benefits — i.e. co-ops vs. individual farmers.
And yes, there was a wait in the past for inspections in some areas. But that ended in 2004, when FLO started charging fees for inspections — The farms that weren’t serious about certification dropped off the list. “I don’t think there’s a waiting period now,” Christina said, though she’s aware the fee now creates a different, new hurdle for already-struggling farmers who want to get certified.
So, okay. I get that not everyone can get fair trade certified at this point, so not being fair trade certified doesn’t mean a company doesn’t care deeply about its farmers. If Groundwork wants to work directly with individual farmers who aren’t organized into a co-op, more power to them.
But when I called Ric this afternoon, I found out that wasn’t the issue either. “We get some of our coffee from growers that are fair trade certified,” he said. “It’s just that we’re not certified on our end.”
Hmmm. The mystery continues, because Ric was getting off the 405 to pick up his daughter and had to go. We’re to meet, face to face, at Groundwork’s offices next week, to talk certification over coffee.
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:15 pm
There are quite a few businesses that are fair without being FLO certified. Typically the reason is that they trade in goods which lack FLO criteria at the moment. Also some major Fair Trade organisations (especially Traidcraft) do not have the FLO certificate on all products. I believe that this is partly because for example Traidcraft have a strong brand recognition in their home market (UK) already and have been around much longer than FLO.
Partly to alleviate these concerns, IFAT (part of the FINE group that includes FLO, IFAT, NEWS! and EFTA, all FT organisations) has created the FTO mark where an organisation can certify itself as a Fair Trade-compliant alternative trading organisation. See more at http://www.ifat.org/marksandlabelsbackground.shtml. This is not a a product certification but an organisational one.
Specifically for coffee, many roasters have traditionally had a relationship with their “trusted growers” and fail to see the benefit of Fair Trade, especially if their trusted growers cannot enter the system due to the restrictions of having to be a co-operative, etc. This is a real problem that should be fixed for the FLO certification to truly become the “one stop shop” for socially responsible purchasing.
I would, however, be more concerned about the almost-fair trade certifications which try to cash in on the consumer goodwill. Typically these leave out the social premium which is the core part of FLO certification. Rainforest Alliance Certified is the most well known of these alternatives, and although they are very clear on what their mark conveys (they are an environmental certification organisation, not as much a social one), the vendors who sell RA Certified goods typically forget the difference in their marketing. In addition, in the book about Rainforest Alliance (”Smart Alliance” by Taylor and Scharlin) they rather directly accused Fair Trade of being a protectionist plot of European socialists because of social premiums. Oh well.
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:59 pm
So they said socialist like it’s a bad thing? ;) Thanks for the informative comment! avs the sorta-anonymous uber-ft commenter — Do you run a blog?
I was rather disappointed to learn more about some of fair trade certification’s shortcomings — Wouldn’t it be wonderful if FT certification solved all problems? But these criticisms are really valid concerns, and I’m planning to talk more with Transfair to see what’s being done to address them.
I knew the crafts, etc. can’t get fair trade certified — I should clarify that more, perhaps. The reason I stick pretty specifically to coffee is that most of the readers coming to this site are often really reading about fair trade in depth for the first time, so it gets really, really confusing to go into the details about the various products — you know, the ones that involve complex subsidies and stuff, though I’ve been going into cotton subsidies a bit.
I mean, it gets pretty confusing just with coffee — organic certification, shade grown certification, rainforest alliance certification, fair trade certification — not to mention all the acronyms: Transfair, FLO, IFAT, FINE, and others. Sometimes I wish all coffee just had one of two labels: “good coffee” and “bad coffee” — but then I wouldn’t have much of a blog –
September 23rd, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Your blog is one I look forward to *EVERY DAY*.
I believe that the fair trade/not privately owned issue also applies to tea, tea plantations and farmers, etc. Because for every cooperative, there are a bunch of small farmers and family owned plantations.
The idea of a new “compliant with FT standards but not able to be certified because of private ownership or other reasons” label appeals to me a lot. It would show me that the core issues I believe in are still being upheld, but that bureaucratic nonsense is the reason for that little FTCertified label being lacking.
September 23rd, 2005 at 1:13 pm
From what I understand (and I’m working from memory here), the size of the farm is an issue in certification also — essentially, a ten-acre farm can get certification, but a twenty-acre one can’t. It does come down to a certain amount of “bureaucratic nonsense,” along with the other problems mentioned.
September 23rd, 2005 at 5:16 pm
Jeff — Thanks for stopping by! I’m a Sustainablog fan — Yes, there is indeed a restriction that keeps larger estates — ones that hire outside workers — from becoming fair trade certified. I’ve been going through FLO’s PDF’s of guidelines, and from what I gather, the certification doesn’t put limits on the size of the farm (I need to double check that), but does limit WHO farms it — The farm can’t be dependent on hired labor. Of course, relying on family labor does put restrictions on the size of the farm (This is specific to coffee — Larger estates can get certified for other products).
And Pillager — You’re like super popular on livejournal! I’m getting a bunch of random hits from over there. Guidelines for tea are very different, as tea workers usually do not own land. It seems that with tea, fair trade certification has to do more with making sure workers get at least the local minimum wage and have safe and humane living and working conditions, including the right to unionize.
September 24th, 2005 at 1:56 am
@Siel:
Fair Trade, RA Certified, shade-grown, organic… that’s just the beginning :-) Here’s some bedtime reading about different coffee certifications. A bit dated (2003) but still interesting.
A look at different coffee certifications:
http://www.somo.nl/html/paginas/pdf/Coffee_&_Codes_2003_Enhanced_NL.pdf
World Bank’s study of whether Fair Trade for coffee could be the solution:
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/ardext.nsf/11ByDocName/CoffeeMarketsNewParadigmsinGlobalSupplyandDemand/$FILE/CoffeeMarkets-ArdDp3.pdf
Study of sustainable coffee in major (European) markets:
http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2003/trade_state_sustainable_coffee.pdf
Yes, I do have a blog (you visited it), but you couldn’t read it because of the language barrier. Which is also why I don’t advertise it here :-)
September 24th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
Wow — Thanks for the links. Will need a lil time to read & digest :) Ok — I remember you now, Antti. You should still link us, really. I mean, at least some of your posts are in English — have you considered dual-language posting, a la Loic le Meur? You’d have at least one faithful reader :)