Fair Trade coffee strong despite brewing controversy
Fair Trade, a certification system aimed at improving working conditions for some of the world’s poorest farmers, has recently come under fire.
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David Pritchard and Madeleine Pengelley, co-owners of Birds and Beans cafe, support the Fair Trade movement and buy beans with the designation despite the fact that the Fair Trade symbol has come under fire recently.
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When David Pritchard runs out of Fair Trade coffee beans he’ll do what he always does: Order more.
The coffee roaster and co-owner of Birds & Beans café in Mimico, pays a premium for beans that come with the newly-controversial designation.
“I think it does a lot of good,” he says, of the Fair Trade system. “It’s a work in progress — but a worthy one.”
Fair Trade, a certification system aimed at improving working conditions for some of the world’s poorest farmers, has recently come under fire.
U.K. researchers have cast doubt on whether paying more for coffee grown, harvested, picked and sold according to Fair Trade rules indeed promotes better wages and better working conditions for those toiling in the field.
Researcher Christopher Cramer at SOAS University of London found that wage workers at their Fair Trade research sites in Ethiopia and Uganda are among the poorest and most destitute. By comparison, the Fairtrade, Employment and Poverty Reduction in Ethiopia and Uganda study (FTEPR) found that labourers at some smallholder independent farms and large-scale, commercial coffee operations alike, which are not associated with Fair Trade, are still “extremely poor” but on average are paid and treated better.
Traditionally, the Fair Trade movement has aimed at improving the living and working conditions for family farmers by increasing the minimum cost of the coffee beans they produce.
But the study discovered that many of those family farms also employ wage earners, Cramer says, often women and girls, who are often a given society’s most destitute.
Researchers also discovered widespread child labour at many farms, including some associated with Fair Trade certifications.
Last year, Fair Trade Canada anointed Toronto a Fair Trade city, making it the largest North American city to earn the designation at the time. More than 400 local stores and cafés sell items that bear the designation.
Geoff Woodley of Detour Coffee, a Toronto roaster that sells to cafes across Canada, deliberately sidesteps the Fair Trade system, opting for Direct Trade coffee. This emerging movement develops direct relationships with small, independent farmers, rather than management teams of co-operative farms associated with Fair Trade. The emphasis, Woodley says, is on creating lasting “business relationships.”
The Fair Trade model often means that several farmers blend their beans together, Woodley says, pooling a variety of different quality coffees. Going to the source not only puts money right into farmers’ hands, Woodley says, but rewards those who produce better beans.
While Fair Trade coffee fetches $2 per pound for producers, Woodley says direct trade farmers often get $3 to $4 per pound of coffee.
“We’re paying for quality above anything else,” he says. “It’s a sustainable model which creates a quality product.”
Marika Escaravage, spokesperson for Fair Trade Canada, says the international organization was already investigating allegations of human rights violations, such as child labour, when Cramer’s study became news a few weeks ago.
Escaravage says Fair Trade International is working to address the problem.
But, she says, one study isn’t a reason to call into question 25 years of work, which has introduced democratic practices into coffee farming, increased the average price of coffee beans and helped improve the lives of many family farmers. Canada imports most of its coffee from Columbia, Peru, Honduras and Mexico, 2012 Fair Trade data shows, and buys very little from Ethiopia and Uganda.
Still, it’s a complex problem without one easy answer, Escaravage says.
“If you think that buying fair-trade coffee is going to solve all the problems in the world – sorry that’s not realistic,” she says. “But it is doing good. We’re constantly improving all the time.”
For Pritchard, that’s the main point.
“It’s raised awareness,” Pritchard says, of the Fair Trade movements. “To throw that all away now would be a huge mistake.”
ምንጭ፦ thestar.com
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