Fair Trade Coffee Break

Fair Trade Coffee

Today kicks of the world’s largest coffee break, or at least that’s what the Fair Trade Resource Network is aiming for. Drink Fair Trade Coffee between now and May 15, and you can join in the record breaking attempt. The current record is 50,000 people by Fairtrade Finland, a record that the USA should be able to easily beat. Yes, I’m a sports addict and turn everything into a competition.

On May 9, Fair Trade Day, I’ll be joining in by drinking a cup of fair trade coffee and reviewing it here. Anyone can join in by attending any of the free trade events across the country, writing about it on their blog or just by drinking some good Fair Trade Coffee with some good friends.

Fair trade coffee isn’t just a label on a package, it’s a social movement and market based approach to help coffee producers in developing countries. Fair Trade creates a partnership between us who drink the coffee and the people that make it.

It works by cutting out the middlemen and paying them a fair price for their coffee beans. It promotes sustainability and helps marginalized producers and workers become more self-sufficient economically.

Fair Trade ensures a living minimum wage of $1.26 per pound no matter what the current market price. We all know that specialty, aka more expensive coffee has become more popular recently, but farmers in many countries are still getting as little as fifty cents per pound.

Fair Trade organizations give credit to the producers to keep them out of debt and away from the middlemen that take advantage of the farmers. Because the farmers are often not well educated or not allowed to trade as individuals in some places, they’re forced to sell to middlemen at huge loses.

More than two million coffee farmers around the world rely on fair trade to support their family.

And not only does it pay them a fair rate, Fair Trade Coffee also has to meet certain social and environmental standards. As part of the certification, farmers are taught environmental and coffee friendly methods of fertilization and pest control. They’re also taught about growing practices that benefit native vegetation and wildlife.

The higher wages also trickles down to local infrastructure investments that improve health care, education and other aspects of life.

For more information about fair trade check out Trans Fair USA and The Fair Trade Foundation. To join the world’s largest fair trade coffee break visit the Fair Trade Resource Network.

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Tagged as: Fair Trade Coffee, Fair Trade Coffee Break

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Chameleon@CoffeeBreak May 1, 2009 at 5:53 pm: Great, informative post, Mike! Glad you’re on the bandwagon – don’t forget to add your link to Mr. Linky over at http://coffeebreak.today.com/virtual-fair-trade-coffee-break/ – or grab the code for the shared meme and put up a Mr. Linky of your own so your friends and readers can link to their blog posts about Fair Trade coffee, tea and other stuff.

Mike May 1, 2009 at 7:19 pm: Thanks, I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface so far and have a lot more to write about. It’s a great topic and I think this is just the beginning of my research.

I left my link at the Virtual Fair Trade Coffee break and I’m going to check out the Mr. Linky.

Thanks