Anyway — I always enjoy being called naughty, and would love to chat — about coffee, critique vs. cooperation, the cult of personality, etc. Will try to load your site again tomorrow –

As far as the Fair Trade model goes, I have always believed that fair trade is a movement, an evolving process, not a simple formula or a strict set of rules that folks can get around or use for their own marketing purposes. Our model is a bit off the norm. We only buy from FLO certified coops and pay at least the fair trade minumum. More significantly, we have a six cent per pound profit sharing program with ALL of the farmers we work with, design and fund people-centered development projects in the coffee villages (totally at the request and co-designed with the growers), provide legal advocacy and community development against Big Oil, intellectual property protection, and whatever else is bugging the farmers (which varies dramatically from country to country). We sponsor grower visits (like bringing Esperanza up from Peru to meet Hillary Clinton and address 3500 NY teachers) and next week we are hosting Tadesse’s 15 year old daughter for two weeks (her first plane flight ever-from Ethiopia). We are arranging full scholarships at US schools for two Papua New Guinea coffee farmer’s kids next Sept, blah blah blah. The point is that to us, fair trade is a deep ethical commitment that permeates every aspect of our relationship with the farmers, not just a price point, a marketing gimmick or a one-stop handwashing for our obligations to third world communities who supply us with a good livelihood up here.

Anyway, this is a great column and I am enjoying the freespeak immensely. I can also take a few punches with moderate grace. Thanks.

As you know, if a coffee blend has ANY non fair trade coffee in it, that blend can’t be certified as fair trade — yet the roaster has to pay extra fees for the fair trade coffee. This means there’s a financial disincentive to roasters to consider making a fair trade coffee a part of one of their premium blends.

I’m of the opinion that this is something we need to discuss further in the fair trade activist community, and possibly push to change.

One complaint I hear by “average Jo’s” about Fair Trade is that although they may agree with the movement’s ideals, they simply are unwilling or unable to pay the premium for FT coffee. These are often people with families on very tight budgets. In one of the comments, there was a criticism of MNC’s who buy only small proportions of FT coffee and sell it at lower prices by mixing it with non-FT coffee. Although this offends FT purists, is it not a possible way to make FT coffee more affordable? Sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s a compromise at least, is it not? Maybe it would be more satisfying if the roaster could indicated what percentage of the coffee was Fair Trade? (you know, they have 100% Columbian labels – why not say “20% Fair Trade”? That would be more honest than hinting that all the coffee was FT, while still allowing budget shoppers to feel slightly better about their purchase)

Okay — I just wrote a long long comment, then decided it would be better to use it for an actual post. A new post on this coming up, really soon.