Comments on: Coffee Crisis 110: Quality isn’t always rewarded

By: Siel

Siel — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:26:11 +0000

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…

By: Dunkling

Dunkling — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 11:23:15 +0000

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.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 06:43:29 +0000

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.

By: JIm

JIm — Fri, 26 May 2006 03:27:11 +0000

OK, I can tell I have nothing to add to this forum, but I have to ask…

“many documented cases”

Do share!

By: Siel

Siel — Mon, 22 May 2006 22:40:54 +0000

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.