How ethical is your coffee? Exploring the local stance on fair and direct trade
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Standing in front of the coffee selection in a grocery store or a cafe is often thrilling (so much choice!), but also perplexing: Which one do I choose? Such indecision is compounded by ethical concerns due to so much coffee being sourced from the developing world.
Fair Trade’s advantage comes from its interaction with coffee
cooperatives representing multiple small hold farmers, thereby
facilitating an economy of scale that makes business with roasters
possible. In Ethiopia, which is considered coffee’s birthplace, farms
average only two hectares. Cooperatives also have the collective power
to improve farmers’ communities by investing in them, as well as
assisting with organic certification, which provides further value add
to coffees sold, she said.
Although Third Coast sells fair trade certified coffee, such as
Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Sidama, it isn’t fair trade certified as an
organization, she said. This is because it believes in paying above the
fair trade minimum price in recognition of the coffee’s quality and
establishing a relationship with the seller that goes a step further.
'' Standing in front of the coffee selection in a grocery store or a cafe is often thrilling (so much choice!), but also perplexing: Which one do I choose? Such indecision is compounded by ethical concerns due to so much coffee being sourced from the developing world.
Fair Trade aims to protect coffee farmers from being exploited but
criticisms of it have led to alternative models emerging like Direct
Trade. Austin coffee roasters such as Third Coast Coffee, Casa Brasil
and Cuvée Coffee source coffees through Fair Trade, Direct Trade or a
variation of either. Each roaster aims to offer coffees that taste good
and that customers can feel good about drinking, confident in the
knowledge that the farmers picking the red cherry that coffee beans come
from are benefiting. But true transparency for coffee traded may
ultimately lie with consumers themselves.
“Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of
world you want,” said Anna Lappé, a writer renowned for her work as a
sustainable food advocate.
Fair trade is intended to be a transparent system of business mutually
beneficial to consumers and producers. The movement began in 1960s
Europe, and today Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO)
is the most widely recognized fair trade certification system.
FLO sets a minimum price per pound of fair trade green coffee beans and
mandates additional premiums: a social premium for farmers’ communities
and another for farmers if coffee is organic.
But for some, doubts undermine the entire Fair Trade movement.
“I don’t buy into it at all,” said Jon Gehrig, a geography graduate
student at The University of Texas at Austin who specializes in the
impact of globalization and consumerism on producing regions. He also
spent six years as a barista in Oregon. “I’m very skeptical.”
His reservations center on additional costs for certification reducing
farmers’ incomes by creating a middleman, and communities being split
when some farmers become certified, while others are unable to and miss
out on premiums their neighbors gain.
His concerns extend into the future, also, he said, as producers become
dependent on wealthier nations’ choices — those embracing Fair Trade —
and alter processes to meet that demand. If the market shifts and demand
drops, he added, those farmers may be stuck, unable to return to
traditional farming practices due to lost skills.
Gehrig said he prefers the Direct Trade movement that he envisages
gaining traction and possibly replacing Fair Trade. It’s based on
relationships between buyers and producers that vouch for fair trade
practices and organic quality through trust and personal knowledge
without needing expensive certificates and their imposed methodologies,
he said.
Direct Trade is a legitimate trading model but doesn’t provide for the
smallest and most vulnerable farmers, said Hillary Rodriguez, head of
production at Third Coast Coffee on South Congress Avenue. It invariably
benefits bigger farms as it is economically prohibitive for smaller
roasters to deal with the smallest farms.
Fair Trade’s advantage comes from its interaction with coffee
cooperatives representing multiple small hold farmers, thereby
facilitating an economy of scale that makes business with roasters
possible. In Ethiopia, which is considered coffee’s birthplace, farms
average only two hectares. Cooperatives also have the collective power
to improve farmers’ communities by investing in them, as well as
assisting with organic certification, which provides further value add
to coffees sold, she said.
Although Third Coast sells fair trade certified coffee, such as
Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Sidama, it isn’t fair trade certified as an
organization, she said. This is because it believes in paying above the
fair trade minimum price in recognition of the coffee’s quality and
establishing a relationship with the seller that goes a step further.
Another reason is because some roasters, such as Starbucks, have been
allowed to sell fair trade coffee without adhering as strictly to the
rules and thereby undermining the entire enterprise, she said.
“Fair Trade is not linked to quality,” said Joel Shuler, owner of Casa Brasil,
on the other side of South Congress Ave. — and the ethical coffee
debate. “Direct Trade emphasizes that quality is the driver of price.”
Another problem is Fair Trade doesn’t address the socio-economic
imbalance, he said, whereby the buyer always occupies a position of
strength and the farmer a position of weakness so that premiums amount
to bestowing pity. Direct Trade proves to farmers they are respected for
producing what is a complex product and rewarded accordingly.
He currently trades with 10 farms, of which the smallest is five
hectares. During September he spent 15 days in Brazil visiting some of
his farmers and coffee competitions to source new coffees.
Casa Brasil’s coffee is labeled Direct Trade, though Shuler
acknowledged that unlike Fair Trade, there is no regulation and any
roaster can claim adherence to the practice — customers have to go on
his word. But they can visit the company’s website and visit his blog
that describes how he has slept at the farms of those he buys coffee
from and whom he counts as friends. Casa Brasil’s Facebook page is populated with the faces of those producing its coffee, he added.
“Fair Trade does have an advantage as it sends people on a regular basis to audit farms,” said Mike McKim, owner of Cuvée Coffee,
20 miles west of Austin in Spicewood. But he remains concerned that the
perception and reality don’t match up and at best farmers receive about
80 percent of the fair trade price once administrative costs are
absorbed. Also, companies can use the label as a crutch to sell mediocre
coffees.
But he doesn’t label his product Direct Trade as he feels that over the
years the movement has been reduced to a label. “I follow the spirit of
Direct Trade as it was originally defined,” he said, referring to when
he formerly worked with Direct Trade’s founders, Geoff Watts and Peter
Giuliano, around 2005.
McKim spent September visiting coffee farmers in four South American
countries. “It’s a massive commitment in terms of time and money, but
it’s like if you are dating someone — you can’t just never see them,” he
said.
Farmers even come to visit Cuvée Coffee and customers know the lengths
the company goes to. Documents aren’t posted online but if someone wants
to question the transparency of coffee transactions, McKim said he can
provide farmers’ contact details or show relevant business contracts.
Increasingly, roasters are making sense of the complexities of the
issues by opting for what they assess are best practices. Third Coast is
one of 24 roasters that make up Cooperative Coffees, which handles
financial transactions with coffee-selling cooperatives. This could be
said to offer a third model blending Fair Trade and Direct Trade in the
form of direct trade between respective cooperatives, Rodriguez said.
Cooperative Coffees’ transaction contracts are posted on the Third Coast Website
where they serve as the ultimate proof of fairly traded coffee, she
said. This method means the burden rests on consumers to check and
confirm trade is as fair and direct and transparent as a roaster claims.
If you asked Starbucks for its documents, it would laugh in your face.
“It’s more about the principle than the label,” Rodriguez said.
http://austin.culturemap.com/news/restaurants-bars/10-11-12-14-53-how-ethical-is-your-coffee-exploring-the-local-fair-trade-movement/
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