Fair Trade Coffee

Click here to order coffee from the Colorado College Fair Trade Coffee Co-op.

Prices are as follows:
-Dark French: $6.50
-Dark Aztec: $6.50
-Mayan Sunrise: $6.50
-Guatemalan Forest: $6.50
-Decaf Mayan: $7.00
-5-lb bags: $30 (except Decaf Mayan which costs $35)

During the last week of the block, orders can be picked up in the environmental science office.

What is Fair Trade Coffee? (information from www.caffeibis.com)
No agricultural product is sustainable if prices are too low to support the investment of time, energy and money. In the case of specialty coffee, the investment is very high, indeed. Mountain grown, specialty grade, organically grown, and shade grown coffee represent one of the most labor-intensive crops grown on earth. The extra hand labor in care of the coffee tree, repeated selective picking, care in processing, drying, sorting, packaging, and storing all contribute to superior cup quality. At today's retail prices of between $9 and $13 per pound (11 to 22 cents per cup), it also represents one of the world's best values.

However, as with other agricultural endeavors, the farmer receives a tiny fraction of that selling price. Large corporate farms and coyote speculators exploit small farmers by meeting the growers on the long road to market with their highly perishable crop on their backs. Yes, the Juan Valdez with a donkey carrying Colombian coffee in television commercials is a fantasy for too many small farmers. A fair traded price differential can make the difference between a donkey, a floor over the dirt of a home, or an elementary school education for a child.

Clearly, fair trade is a key element for a sustainable coffee future. Farmers everywhere do hard, demanding, highly speculative work, often out of a love of the land and a love of the occupation. Without a fair price for their crops, all the love in the world will not pull them out of a nosedive into oblivion. With that oblivion we will all be condemned to a life without the energy and inspiration that foods of quality give to us.

Check out this informative video about fair trade coffee (Macromedia Flash required).
Check out this public service anouncement about fair trade coffee from actor Martin Sheen (Quicktime required).

How does a product get labeled as Fair Trade? (information from www.fairtrade.net)
There are two sets of generic producer standards, one for small farmers and one for workers on plantations and in factories. The first set applies to smallholders organised in cooperatives or other organisations with a democratic, participative structure. The second set applies to organised workers, whose employers pay decent wages, guarantee the right to join trade unions and provide good housing where relevant. On plantations and in factories, minimum health and safety as well as environmental standards must be complied with, and no child or forced labour can occur.

As Fairtrade is also about development, the generic standards distinguish between minimum requirements, which producers must meet to be certified Fairtrade, and progress requirements that encourage producer organisations to continuously improve working conditions and product quality, to increase the environmental sustainability of their activities and to invest in the development of the organisations and their producers/workers.

Trading standards stipulate that traders have to:
-pay a price to producers that covers the costs of sustainable production and living;
-pay a premium that producers can invest in development;
-partially pay in advance, when producers
ask for it;
-sign contracts that allow for long-term planning and sustainable production practices.