Several days ago, Scot McKnight posted about the merits of fair trade coffee. During the discussion, a commenter named Edwin Martinez offered his insights. Good stuff!
I have spent some time in every link in the chain from seed to cup and have a great respect for Fair Trade and the positive impact it can have. I would like to see more FT coffee in certain areas, but the reality is Fair Trade is more fair in some areas than others as it is a global average paid to farmers around the world who have greatly varying costs of production.
I we have neighbors in the highlands of Huehuetenango that have been in FT coops and at times they have appreciation for it and other times they desperately want out as they see those not locked in an FT contract coming out ahead. One point to realize is FT does stipulates little about quality and in my opinion this is a fundamental component of a sustainable supply chain. If it is driven by other value added than it becomes dependent on that other added value. So for example if FT consumer market ever feels less benevolent and demand flattens out or decreases, then the FT grower now is left with less competitive advantage in the open market as he has gone for years being awarded a price not connected to quality. Incentive to produce a competitive product based on quality is gone. Thus he is literally left with a product that is WORTH-LESS than before FT entered his/her life.
That being said I find FT is a great match where quality is capped, AND there is NO BETTER ALTERNATIVE, such as other crops or any other form of work that would offer a better return.
I think if one wants to be responsible with how you spend your coffee purchasing dollars, you do the best you can. If it is FT and you don't know any better, GREAT! FT will naturally find more success in areas were it is truly a good match. Places where FT is not a good match will likely eventually migrate to what is a better option for the growers.
In my opinion there are better options. As a grower I know there is great sense of reward in knowing someone genuinely appreciates and values our product for it's inherent quality, and that people pay a good premium not because they like us, our story, feel charitable etc… but because they like the quality. This to me is ideal sustainability. This means if some day a customer decides they don't like us, but they blindly prefer our coffee, we have a good product that they will continue buying and if not someone else will even if they're not feeling charitable.
So where does this leave you as an end consumer? Do as much homework as you feel burdened to do and make the most responsible decision you can. Better alternatives are often hard to find as there is a lot of seemingly comparable programs out there, however being much smaller than FT there is generally less accountability which requires you to have more trust in the integrity of the program. the cost of accountability is quite high. In a perfect world end consumers would be more educated about quality, and their purchasing dollars would strongly line up with quality driven supply chains. Quality comes at a cost. To produce a great cup requires thing being done right in every step which over time with globalization and increased technology and transparency means people become fairly rewarded for working hard and doing a good job.
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