Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/96901
How fair is fair trade? Questions of who should share in fair trade led to the divorce of Fair Trade USA from its global parent. BY PAN DE METRAKAKES W APROCASSI, a Peruvian coffee cooperative, recently received a grant from Fair Trade USA. How best to benefit farmers is the central question of the Fair Trade dispute. hat's the fairest way to ensure Fair Trade? The Fair Trade concept is the oldest and bestestablished approach to making sure coffee farmers get a reasonable return. But the Fair Trade world was roiled last year when Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) split from its parent organization, Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO), based in Bonn, Germany. The divorce, which became effective at the beginning of this year, now means that coffee buyers—whether coffeehouse proprietors or simply consumers—now have two Fair Trade certifications to choose from. The split between FTUSA and FLO goes to the heart of what is, or should be, the mission of Fair Trade. Specifically, it's about what kinds of coffee farms and farmers should be included or excluded, based on their size. Both sides have advocates who have dedicated years to Fair Trade, are passionately committed to their respective points of view—and just as passionately convinced that the other side is wrong. The Fair Trade concept, at its most basic, involves simply paying a small premium for coffee and other Third World commodities, with the understanding that the extra money will go to the farmers. The split between FTUSA and FLO came about primarily over the issue of what kinds of coffee farms should be eligible for Fair Trade. The traditional Fair Trade model, which is still practiced by FLO, caters mostly to small farms organized into cooperatives. These co-ops decide collectively how to use the extra Fair Trade money for the betterment of their community. FTUSA believes that large farms that employ many workers should be eligible for protection under the Fair Trade umbrella—and so should small farmers who are not organized into co-ops. 10 ESTATES OR PLANTATIONS? FTUSA, led by president and CEO Paul Rice, believes that including large coffee farms with many employees (which Rice refers to as "estates") is the only realistic way to grow the Fair Trade concept and keep it viable in the marketplace. FLO and other practitioners of the traditional Fair Trade model believe that extending it to large farms (which they prefer to call "plantations") will dilute the concept beyond all meaning. To date, FTUSA has taken what Rice calls "baby steps" in implementing the new model. Four new producers have joined so far, two estates and two "networks" of small holders. FTUSA's goal is to bring in about 20 more new producers over the next two years. Rice says he came to the decision to move away from the co-ops-only approach after years of observation, both before and after he helped found FTUSA in 1998, convinced him that it was too constricting. He claims that the traditional model excludes some 90 percent of the 30 million worldwide workers in the coffee sector. "I came to this work after 11 years of work in the field [in Nicaragua], where I worked on one failed development project after another," Rice says. "Fair Trade really tries to rethink that logic and create a sustainable business model." TOO RESTRICTIVE Rice's biggest objection to the co-ops-only approach is that it puts a large portion of global coffee production out of the reach of Fair Trade. This effect is exacerbated by the pervasiveness of blended coffee. Most roasters want as much flexibility as they can to use whatever coffee they think will