How Fair is Fair Trade?

This is a guest post by Michael>. Learn more about how you can guest post for Daily Shot Of Coffee.

Recently I was lucky enough to travel to Kenya where I was able to visit one of the many coffee plantations in the country. One thing I wasn’t surprised to find was just how poorly the farmers are paid for their efforts. Of course when I returned I immediately began investigating fair trade coffee thinking that it was a good way to help support these underpaid workers but I was shocked to discover that there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that fair trade actually benefits these workers at all.

You see fair trade pays the companies that export the coffee and do not regulate how much of it goes to the farmer. The added difficulty is that it is almost impossible to judge how beneficial the fair trade products even are because many coffee retailers do not sell two of the same product with one being fair trade and the other not.

In four cases, though, they have been able to measure those results. One British café chain was found to be passing on less than one per cent of the extra charges consumers paid by consumers and one Finnish company found that only 11.5% reached the exporter. Likewise, the US fair trade company is said to receive an additional $5 per lb of coffee of which only 2 per cent reaches exporters.

These kind of results have cause many critics, such as Christian Jacquiau, to attack fair trade for operating within current consumerist systems rather than starting their own fair and fully autonomous system.

It has caused even more people to claim that fair trade is nothing more than a skilfully executed marketing ploy used by supermarkets to charge even more extortionate price for their coffee and it seems a real shame that supermarkets are exploiting the good nature of its consumers and keeping the profits for themselves.

Those that do support the fair trade movement, though, claim that the fair trade label has had a ‘honeypot’ effect on local business meaning that once an exporter joins fair trade it is easier to attract support from other charities. That again makes it difficult to judge whether or not it is these local charities or fair trade that is having the positive effect on famers – assuming there is one at all.

Now I am sure you will agree that this article has thus far been wholly negative towards fair trade but what I am actually trying to shock you into realising is that just because it has a label is doesn’t mean your money will reach the third world and so you must research the places you buy fair trade from before you commit. Otherwise you will likely be donating your money to some faceless executive slaving away on his Yacht in Spain.

That said there are many benefits that come from fair trade like improved working environments, the creation of orphanages and greater coffee yields due to better equipment. So make sure to fully investigate where you are shopping and this is where I get mine: Fair trade coffee.

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Michael is a coffologist. A coffee connoisseur. A barista you might say. But more than likely he is just addicted to caffeine which is why, when he isn’t working as a copywriter, he is knocking back mug after mug of expressly imported Turkish coffee.

Photo by jakeliefer.

Category: Coffee Thoughts