Today’s Observer has an extremely interesting article on fair trade coffee in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa. The author considers both sides of the argument (including the Economist article we mentioned recently):
Fairtrade labelling has helped some farmers in Ethiopia and elsewhere. It guarantees a minimum $1.26 a pound to producers’ co-operatives (Union Coffee Roasters will pay around $1.65 to the Rwandan co-op for this February’s crop) and it brings many other benefits, not least stability and the confidence in the market that enables farmers to plan ahead. While Fairtrade coffee sales have been rising unstoppably this decade – up by a third or more every year in the UK – it is still largely in the posh coffee sector, the bags of roasted beans and cafetière-ground at the expensive end of the supermarket shelf. The British drink far more fairly traded coffee than anyone else and sales hit £65.8 million here in 2005. But that was only five per cent of overall UK coffee consumption – a soupçon, in the global market – where Fairtrade accounts for less than one per cent of business.
One of the key questions we are investigating is the relative merits of consumer-led action through fair trade labelling (with our wine partners in Chile) compared to government regulation of social conditions (with our coffee partners in India).
Thank you for posting this very informative article. I have posted the article on the Blog of the Washington DC Fair Trade Coalition.
And, as always, thank you very much for taking the time to support Fair Trade. Our efforts are certainly appreciated.
Elizabeth Gilhuly
Organizer
Washington DC Fair Trade Coalition
http://www.fairtrade.meetup.com/3
MakeTradeFairMeetup@email.com
For those of you who are interested in the issue of Fair trade, there is a powerful documentary out called “Black Gold,” that documents the lives of Ethiopian coffee farmers and clearly demonstrates why all of us should be asking for Fair Trade coffee. The film was recently released in the theater but is now available to the public on DVD via California Newsreel. You can read more about the documentary or pick up a copy of it here at http://newsreel.org/