Say you’re having a friendly yet serious convo with a coffee company that says it opts for “quality” over fair trade certification. You’ll likely to hear one of the 2 following arguments:
The old, outdated one: “I’d do fair trade, but fair trade coffee just isn’t up to par, and our coffee company’s about quality.”
If you hear this one, you can simply call them on their bullshit. Yummy fair trade coffee’s been winning taste awards — for a few years now. This argument’s moot.
The newer argument: “Quality coffee can’t be produced under oppressive circumstances, because good coffee requires long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. Our coffee company buys only quality coffee, which automatically means all our coffee comes from farms where workers are treated fairly.”
This second argument I’ve been hearing a lot lately. The problem with it? It’s an over-idealistic, over-generalized statement that seems to make sense theoretically, but doesn’t necessarily hold up to be true in practice.
Says Mark of the 100% fair trade Taylor Maid Farms: “It’s hard to make a blanket statement like that.” He compares it to the wine industry, where a wine made from grapes grown through unfair labor and tons of pesticides may still win taste awards.
But back to coffee: For one thing — Some producers that make really, really yummy coffee just don’t get the top dollar that their coffees deserve, for a myriad of reasons. The producer may not know of the coffee’s real worth, and the middlemen or roaster that buys the coffee may not know either. Or the middlemen or roaster may know its worth, but buy it for dirt cheap from the producer who doesn’t.
Clearly, many coffee farmers just don’t have the access to markets where their crops will be evaluated properly. For ex, a 2002 MSNBC article tells the story of Nicaraguan coffee farmers who suddenly discovered their coffee’s real worth:
Tasty Nicaraguan coffee drew raves at coffee auctions this summer, where beans from San Isidro and El Regreso plantations went for $11.75 per pound - more than 20 times the current commodity price. “The farmers were stunned. … They were only offered only 20 cents per pound on the local market for this crop,†trader Steve Hurst of Mercanta Coffee Hunters told reporters before buying up as many of the sacks as he could. (via Two Heroes)
I’m all for yummy coffee. But yumminess doesn’t always mean farmers got a fair deal. Another reason why fair trade’s still important.
May 18th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
..maybe they people who think the coffee is bad should try a new roaster. You can have two plantation very near to each other with on carrying a certification and one not.
I have had, however, some coffee that I would serve in a heartbeat at our cafe (wood fired espresso blends, candy in your mouth) that did not carry a certification so we did not go with it. It is a tough decision however.
..be bold
May 18th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Stumbled over here via Sour Duck. I love the focus of your blog - have added a new category in my bloglines to fit it into.
May 18th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
“long-term, mutually beneficial relationships”
Gee! What’s this? Are you talking about relationship buying? What is that? Ask your friend Mark about it, since I’m sure he considers himself a relationship buyer. As a loyal reader I’d be interested to hear more about this. Does realtionship buying have any advantages over Fair Trade certification? All this is news to me! Tell us more!
May 18th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Hey Jason — Good point you bring up here about the role roasters play. Sometimes, yummy coffee mistakenly gets sold as “conventional” coffee — then overroasted by people who don’t know how lucky they were. Another way quality coffee sometimes doesn’t get recognized –
Thanks Cristy :)
JIm — Relationship buying and fair trade are not mutually exclusive — Fair trade’s all about mutually beneficial long-term relationships :)
Anyway — I’m all for relationship coffee — My point is that some people will argue that if a coffee is of quality, it MUST have been produced through mutually beneficial relationships — which isn’t necessarily true.
May 19th, 2006 at 8:11 am
Yeah the “FT does not mean quality” arguement against buying FT got very stale for me as well. Even with Fair Trade, coffee companies still need to do their job and define and manage the quality they expect from their supply chain.
Let’s remember that coffee is historically an imperial crop. We cannot expect producers (FT or otherwise) to understand the quality we seek without clearly explaining it to them. I consider FT one of many tools I use to manage my relationships…a very important tool mind you, with a social movement behind it… but none-the-less a tool to assure that the money I pay get’s into the hands of the farmers I buy it from. As for quality, I prefer that I manage that myself.
As for great tasting, marginalized worker coffee…. I call it the terrior of poverty. Sure it exists. Cultural, economic, and political constraints are responsible for all the great coffee profiles. However, under the tenant of maintaining a relationship, I do not find this model sustainable…. just call a broker in NY and ask them for a classic Guat. You will get one, but they won’t specify a farm.
Time I get down from this soap box,
Great blog Siel.
E
May 19th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
the quality vs. fair trade fallacy still rears its ugly head. and people are still not willing to accept that increased quality from fair trade certified co-ops proves that the system is working (fair prices=money to invest in infrastructure, quality, etc.)
and this is interesting too: http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/origin/directtrade
siel, any thoughts on another self-certification that justifies itself through a distorted view of Fair Trade Certified?
May 19th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
I read Intelligentsia’s press release and don’t understand what about their program pushes a distorted view of Fair Trade Certified.
Company’s like Intelligentsia and Counter Culture are able to offer more to farmers than what Fair Trade does. Not just cash, but horticultural and milling advice too. They don’t charge farmers for these services, they just buy their coffee!
While I don’t think FT certification is a totally thing of the past, I do think there are better and smarter deals for producers now, and more will come in the future.
The last Cup of Excellence in Brazil awarded the top producer with $49.75 / pound for his 12 bags of coffee (almost $80,000). That’s nothing to shake a stick at. Even the 36th ranking coffee received $2.30 / pound… that’s more than Fair Trade’s.
There are just a handful of companies who can help coffee farmers like this.
Bravo Intelligentsia!
Thanks for posting that link!
-JIm
May 21st, 2006 at 5:16 pm
So Jim, what’s the difference between Intelligentsia’s Direct Trade and Starbucks’ CAFE Practices? Fair Trade is not “Just Cash,” anyone who truly understands the Fair Trade model knows that. You say that Intelligentsia’s Direct Trade program offers farmers “more” than Fair Trade - yet all of the environmental and social development criteria of Direct Trade are exactly what Fair Trade guarantees (in fact, Fair Trade social and environmental standards go far beyond Intelligentsia’s model). And the Fair Trade price is a minimum, not a ceiling or fixed price — so what’s stopping Intelligentsia from paying 25% more than the Fair Trade price anyway? Why does it have to be an either/or? Why couldn’t Intelligentsia continue to participate in Fair Trade, still pay farmers 25% more and spearhead community development programs all their own? Because you get such better press when you capitalize off of misperceptions about Fair Trade, and come up with your own program with a catchy name; and now, none of those pesky non-profit, third-parties and their internationally recognized standards are sniffing around the books. In the end, Intelligentsia’s marketing hype and self-promotion hurts the very farming communities it claims to help, opening the door for more industry-driven “certification” programs that go “beyond” Fair Trade - remember how well Yuban claimed to know good ‘ole Juan? Why can’t all “mission-driven” and “relationship” coffee companies just embrace Fair Trade as their starting point, get over their damn egos, greed and cynicism, and sweat the what-tastes-better and who-does-more later? Fair Trade can do only so much, the rest is up to each company - and each time these companies knock Fair Trade, they remove a brick from their own foundation.
-Lua
May 22nd, 2006 at 10:28 am
a side note-Cups of Excellence often have nothing to do with what farmers are paid for their beans. There are many documented cases of farmers being paid chump change for beans that an estate or broker takes along to a CoE and gets $20 a pound while the farmer still gets nothing. Furthermore, CoE’s represent special small lots that must be sold at the end of the auction and these purchases have no contractual tie-ins to the rest of that farmer/estate’s crop.
another side note: Intelligentsia has stated that the inspiration for the Direct Trade model is the premium wine market. http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/retail/millennium/04-12-2006 (last paragraph of “New Program…” WOW. The people who rake in the cash for high quality grapes are most certainly NOT the people picking them. It’s the wealthy landowners who reap the profits, not the people in the fields. Ooops!
to Lua-coffee roasters getting over their damn egos? that’s a good one. har har. i would really laugh if it wasn’t all so sad. that’s one place where the premium coffee/premium wine analogy is strongest…
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Lua and hmmm… — Thanks for your thoughtful analyses of Direct Trade and the Cup of Excellence programs in relation to fair trade. Really interesting to look at Direct Trade in conjunction with Starbucks’ CAFE practices — I’ll add a link from that post to Lua’s comment here.
hmmm… — Great point, especially in conjunction with what Mark Inman said about premium wines (quoted in post)!
I think what makes things even more difficult is that there really ARE devoted mission-based companies that really ARE going beyond fair trade certification that’re actually breaking with TFUSA because they feel fair trade certification doesn’t go far enough. Sadly, less-than-devoted companies are then able to point to those, more legitimate concerns, use them as an excuse for not doing fair trade, then develop faux-”better” program like CAFE or Direct Trade…
Update, 7/3/06: OK — Lua and hmmm…’s analyses were NOT thoughtful ones! I’ve been corrected, and apologize for not doing more research on Direct Trade and the Cup of Excellence programs before responding to the comments. Upon a closer look, it seems that Intelligentsia’s Direct Trade program’s NOTHING like Starbucks’ CAFE practices; in fact, Intelligentsia seems like one of the companies that really ARE going beyond fair trade certification to ensure equitable trade.
May 25th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
OK, I can tell I have nothing to add to this forum, but I have to ask…
“many documented cases”
Do share!
June 23rd, 2006 at 11:43 pm
As someone who has been following and involved in a wide variety of socially conscious coffee issues for more than half a decade (going back to the roots of the FT movement), I have to say that hmmm…’s comments (#9, above) are unfortunately completely and utterly false about CoE purchased coffees.
Except for admin fees, which are very low, the farmers see all the auction money. No brokers, no middlemen, no nada. From the auctions, they get all the proceeds.
He may be confused with what the farmers do with the rest of their crops. The Cup of Excellence bags sometimes represent only a portion of their crops. They still need to sell the rest, and in some cases, still follow the old method of following the middleman route. However, one thing CoE has done has completely empowered these participating farmers into establishing direct and long lasting relationships with roasters, bypassing the middlemen almost entirely. In some cases, the roasters even broker the deals for the processing.
IMO, FT is a great thing in principle, but sometimes very flawed in execution. But I still think (and I’m in the minority amongst my peers in this business) it’s a good thing. But if I had to rank various socially conscious things revolving around coffee, I would do it as such:
4 Certified Organic
3 Fair Trade
2 Auctions
1 Direct Relationships (the winnah)
for things that actually benefit the farmer the most.
Again, the CoE comments by the anonymous #9 above: patently false.
June 24th, 2006 at 4:23 am
FAIR TRADE COFFEE TOUR
Participate in a working adventure vacation in Veracruz/Oaxaca, Mexico in January, helping farmers harvest their coffee, seeing first-hand how fair-trade positively impacts communities, meet with NGOs who are assisting coffee farmers and explore Oaxaca. $100 of each particpants tour fee will go directly to the coffee cooperative for use on one of several projects including child nutrition programs and a breast cancer screening clinic. Visit uvm.edu/adventures/travel or contact gregory.dunkling@uvm.edu for details.
June 26th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Hey Mark — Thanks for the interesting comment! I think my main “issue” — if I can call it that — with the direct relationships is that I’m often not sure how direct they are. I mean, there are def. companies out there who have v. direct relationships — but others give the appearance that they do, when most of their coffee seems to be bought through conventional channels… The difficulty for the consumer’s being able to tell the two apart without doing mountains of research…