Justice and Java

...They have hours ations branched out nationally and to date efforts h now over 50 roasters and coffee the Ba Japan, importers have voluntarily agreed 100 rel to abide by Fair Trade criteria and submit to monitoring by TransFairUSA...

...Shortly thereafter, we organized several peaceful demonstrations in front of Starbucks stores in Seattle...

...As soon as the beans are on Starbucks' shelves, we will be pressuring the company to offer Fair Trade-certified coffee in brewed, in-store drinks...

...The situation was similar in Europe, whose long, explicit history of colonialism has left more of the population aware of how their countries' economic policies have aggravated poverty in the Global South...

...aragua's Ministry of Labor allows children to work alongside their parents in coffee stations...

...It is also an important win for the corporate accountability movement...

...Deborah James is the Fair Trade director of Global Exchange, where she coordinates a national public education campaign to promote Fair-Trade certified coffee...

...As coffee demonstrates, the key to success is to educate consumers that another product exists, and to mobilize citizens to demand it...

...Coffee is also grown on large plantations worked by landless day laborers with low rates of unionization and extremely poor working conditions...

...Te recipients of Fair Trade benefits are some 500,000 farmers organized into 300 cooperatives in 20 countries in Central and South America, Africa and Asia...

...We chose Starbucks because it is the largest specialty coffee retailer, with a fifth of all cafes in the country...

...They will also be developing educational materials and training for coffee bar workers, so that millions of consumers can learn about Fair Trade...

...Three days before our scheduled demonstrations, Starbucks announced an agreement with TransFairUSA to offer Fair Trade Certified coffee at all its stores nationwide, beginning this October...

...Immediately after the program aired, we organized a local protest...

...Starbucks' quick capitulation in the face of nationwide protest illustrates that grass roots organizing and education can indeed bring major results...

...Farmers, many of them indigenous peoples, grow most of the world's coffee beans on plots of VoL XXXIV, No 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 11UPDATE / GLOBALIZATION less than 10 acres...

...Fair Trade offers a mechanism for small farmers to receive higher prices as an alternative to the "tyranny of the C market...

...The prices they often receive are less than the costs of production, which pushes them into an endless cycle of poverty and debt...

...We will also continue encouraging Starbucks to sell Fair Trade coffee on campuses and to increase their purchases generally...

...Workers also were subject to forced overtime without compensation, and usually did not receive their legally mandated benefits...

...Even the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) recently officially endorsed Fair Trade Certification, and has formed a task force to determine ways to promote it...

...From sales to the Fair Trade market, farmers earned $600,000 over the regular market price for their coffee last year...

...Max Havelaar added sugar, cocoa, tea, and bananas-historically c cash crops-from cooperat former colonies...

...consumers seem ready for this new way of doing business...

...75,000 pounds of Fair Trade coffee...

...The Fair Trade Federation, the national association of Fair Trade retailers and wholesalers, boasts over 100 business members that import or market crafts to support cooperative producers with fair prices...

...Fair Trade is the name of the movement, and its time has come...

...We responded that for a firm as big as Starbucks, this represented a "Drop in the Cup"-an average of only about 30 pounds per store-and the coffee was not certified...

...A recent study by the Guatemalan Commission for the Verification of Corporate Codes of Conduct found half the workers on fincas in that country earning less than $3 per day for picking 100 pounds of coffee...

...The anti-sweatshop movement has struggled for years to answer the consumer question, "I'd be happy to stop buying from Nike or GAP, but what should I buy instead...

...We then petitioned Starbucks stockholders at their annual meeting in Seattle to offer Fair Trade Certified coffee...

...Meanwhile, the Student Alliance to Reform Corporations, United Students Against Sweatshops, and the Student Environmental Action Coalition have participated in Fair Trade-certified coffee activities across the country...

...In 1988 fair trade advocates realized that producers of basic agricultural con ties faced tremendous disadv in the global market as their of trade" (the value of their p related to other goods) contii decline-and that developing Trade market could be a so The effort to bring the Fair concept to mainstream comm and markets originated in through a Dutch organization Max Havelaar, the first fai monitoring organization...

...In February 2000, an investigative report by San Francisco's ABC TV affiliate exposed child labor and scandalously low wages on Guatemalan coffee plantations, some of which sell coffee to Starbucks...

...They earn at most two dollars a day...

...European fair trade efforts originally focused on operating alternative retail stores that sold folk crafts...

...The company was initially very hesitant, alleging that the beans were of low quality...

...Arabica retails for about Trade s. Fair $10 a pound and comprises 15 to ties...

...In its natural, shaded habitat, coffee is a sustainable crop...

...The most important requirement is a minimum price of $1.26 per pound, paid directly to organized farmer cooperatives-not to middlemen...

...In coffee 25% of the total coffee market...

...nmodi- and 15 importing countries in countr antages Europe...

...Established in 1982, it has more than 5,000 families who farm roughly 15 acres each...

...Paul Rice, the iro Trade TransFair's Director, spent over 10 shop e iodities years working with coffee coopera- Intemrna Europe tives in Latin America and realized and th( called that building a Fair Trade market Glot r trade was a better way for farmers to lic edu name increase their incomes than other summ( book development projects...

...U.S...

...They generally receive less than half the C market price, or between 30 and 50 cents a pound for coffee that retails for as much as $10...

...Behind a cup of coffee there are faces and people-people who are working to produce good coffee...

...However, the two groups are part of an intricately related system that has existed for centuries, leaving coffee harvesters immiserated, and coffee drinkers mostly unaware of the suffering that goes into making their beverage...

...But so far, Starbucks has agreed to offer Fair Trade-certified coffee in whole bean form only: It will be available in take-home bags, but not brewed in the cafes...

...Global Exchange got involved with TransFair USA as an outgrowth of the 10 years we have spent promoting Fair Trade through our Bay Area craft stores...

...After many of volunteer public education and solid media coverage, y Area is now home to over tail outlets for Fair Trade-cerVOL XXXIV, No 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2000 13UPDATE / GLOBALIZATION tified coffee, up from four when we started a year ago...

...The world price is set on the New York "C market"-the section of Wall Street that deals in sugar, cocoa and coffee...

...We then circulated an Open Letter, signed by 84 student, environmental, church, and social justice organizations, again asking Starbucks to pay farmers a living wage and offer their customers Fair Trade Certified coffee...

...The S honey TransFairUSA began its efforts follow olonial in late 1998 by producing a video farmer ives in about coffee farmers, Santiago's Franc untries Story, then launching a San event hanged Francisco Bay Area campaign to Super and in convince coffee roasters of the cate T Trade benefits of Fair Trade...

...Starbucks refuses to disclose the location of the plantations from which it buys, making independent monitoring impossible...

...In the fall of 1999, Global Exchange approached then-CEO Howard Schultz and requested that Starbucks offer Fair Trade-certified coffee in all its stores...

...As this y's first product with an indent monitoring system to e against sweatshop-style abuses, coffee represents an :ant alternative model to the ade practices advocated by n triangle of the global sweatconomy: the World Bank, the itional Monetary Fund (IMF), eWorld Trade Organization...

...Fair Trade importers also must provide farmers with credit at fair terms and commit to long-term trade relationships...

...In contrast to the assumption that upping prices paid for cash crops might induce farmers to increase export dependence, experience has shown that farmers are more likely to use the additional income they gain from the Fair Trade market to invest in projects that increase food security...

...In the 1970s the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) gave over $80 million to coffee plantations in Latin America to "modernize"-to strip coffee of shade trees and purchase chemical pesticides and fertilizers...

...This has led to severe environmental problems, such as contamination of air and water through pesticide poisoning...

...Farmers are more likely to use the additional income they gain from the Fair Trade market to invest in projects that increase food security...

...Farmers in over 50 nations are hostage to this speculative market...

...In 1995, as a result of pressure from the U.S./Guatemala Labor Education Project, Starbucks drafted the first Code of Conduct for coffee suppliers, but they have yet to implement it...

...consumers purchase 25% of the beans traded in the global market...

...It was traditionally developed as a colonial cash crop, planted and harvested by serfs or wage laborers on large plantations, then exported to imperial countries...

...It has also led to deforestation, which has become a major threat to migratory songbirds because of habitat destruction...

...Founded in 1993 and boasting over 2,420 families, PRODECOOP has undertaken projects such as building schools and healthcare centers as well as training in production techniques and legal matters...

...branch of FLO...

...When it comes to our daily brew, an independently monitored alternative finally exists--one that sets a standard for fair trade in the global economy...

...To have their coffee certified as Fair Trade, importers must satisfy strict international criteria and submit to independent monitoring by TransFairUSA, the new certification agency based in Oakland, California...

...That same week, the company announced a one-time shipment of Starbucks' quick capitulation in the face of nationwide protest illustrates that grass roots organizing and education can indeed bring major results...

...Coffee is the world's second most valuable market commodity after petroleum, and U.S...

...In sever- pla al industrialized countries, (leh including the United States, activists have been putting grassroots pressure on big coffee retailers such as Starbucks to buy directly from cooperative farmers and pay them a price that represents a living wage...

...The idea of marketing fairly priced products from cooperatives is not entirely new, particularly for people who were sympathetic to Central America's revolutionary movements of the 1980s...

...We helped host a from Esteli, Nicaragua-San isco's Sister City-for an with San Francisco visor and living wage advoom Ammiano...

...One such group, the Promoter of Cooperative Development in the Segovias (PRODECOOP), is based in Esteli, Nicaragua...

...cessfu Trade TransFair's research showed that San Max people who pay $10 a pound for Oaklar enjoys coffee would not mind adding a purchi ners in dollar to guarantee a fair trade Tradelater price to small coffee farmers...

...Branching out nationally, in fall 1999 we laid the groundwork to help community activists and college students coordinate Fair Trade coffee campaigns...

...As Merling Preza Ramos, PRODECOOP's director, recently put it, coffee producers are asking only "to be paid a fair price...

...Currently, Europe has about 3,500 such stores...

...This isn't charity...

...Meanwhile, hundreds of people faxed letters to Starbucks from our website or sent postcards asking the giant retailer to pay farmers fair prices...

...Another Fair Trade cooperative, in Oaxaca, Mexico, is the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Isthmus Region (UCIRI...

...Their support made the difference in many cooperatives keeping rather than losing their land when the Sandinistas lost power in 1990...

...Coffee workers are denied basic labor rights not just in Guatemala, but worldwide, and efforts to develop an industry-wide Code of Conduct are underway...

...We helped plan 30 demonstrations that were scheduled for April 13 across the country at Starbucks shops...

...pende "terms The concept of "mainstreaming" ensur roducts fair trade took off in the United labor nued to States in 1998, with the formation import a Fair of TransFairUSA, this country's free tr lution...

...Thi comes from the title of a about Dutch colonial explo of Indonesian coffee wor the turn of the century book's popularity garnered support for labor reforms Trade advocates pressured companies to abide by Fair criteria and carry the Havelaar label, which now wide recognition by consul Holland...

...TransFair buildi itation reasoned that it could appeal to churc kers at "specialty" coffee consumers, who union . The pay top dollar for quality Arabica increa Dutch beans...

...At that rate, a family earns an average of only $600 a year...

...Perhaps our most dramatic campaign has been focused on Starbucks...

...More coi took on the concept and cI the name to TransFair, 1997 incorporated into Fair Labeling Organiz International (FLO), whic has branches in Canada, Protesters at the opening of a Starbucks in Bloomington, Indiana urge consumers to buy Fair Trade coffee...

...UCIRI has helped create the region's only public bus line, a farm supply center, healthcare services, cooperative corn mills, an agricultural extension and training program, and the region's only secondary school...

...At that time, solidarity activists and organizations, such as the Boston-based Equal Exchange, were importing and selling small amounts of Nicaraguan coffee to support that country's Sandinista movement, and paying farmers fair prices...

...workers and farmers...

...She is also Chair of the Fair Trade Federation...

...Because of the new movement, Starbucks has just begun offering millions of consumers a choice--between coffee produced under sweatshop conditions, and a product based on principles of fair trade...

...We believe that as we criticize free trade and corporate globalization for its lack of democracy and exploitation of poor people around the world, we also need to promote our own vision of a global trade system based on economic justice...

...Fair Trade clearly makes sense for farmers...

...Sorting coffee beans are Maryluz Guti6rrez ) and Maria Sdnchez (right), both 11...

...We now have a network of over 50 groups, mostly on campuses such as the University of Chicago and Columbia, where students are working to pass purchasing restrictions at those institutions for fair trade coffee...

...Efforts have already been successful at the University of California Davis, College of the Atlantic, and University of Delaware...

...All over Latin America, farmers are forced to sell the future rights to their harvest to exploitative middlemen in exchange for the credit they need to pay for basic necessities...

...While severely volatile, the C market price for coffee has hovered around $1 per pound since the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989...

...But a movement is growing among coffee consumers to demand justice for coffee Nic...

...In a recent BusinessWeek/Harris poll, 51% of those interviewed said they support fair trade rather than protectionism or "free trade...

...Coffee is a significant source of foreign exchange for many Latin American countries and has played a major role in the political histories of nations such as Mexico, Colombia, Guatemala and Brazil...

...The income is used to pay bank debt and thus avoid loss of land, to purchase the cooperative's own mill, and to increase the quality of the coffee...

...In the mid20th century, however, with the advent of the Green Revolution-an agribusiness-oriented scheme that pressed high technology on traditional farmers-varieties of highyielding coffee were pursued...

...The image of carefree consumers enjoying $3 lattes seems totally unrelated to that of coffee-bean farmers and workers, who live with unrelenting poverty, illiteracy and a long legacy of economic colonialism...

...anta Cruz city council later red suit...

...al Exchange initiated a pubcation-for-action campaign in er 1999, and currently we are ng a network of activists, h groups, students, labor s and environmentalists to se consumer demand for Fair coffee in our own communithe Bay Area, we have suclly lobbied city councils in Francisco, Berkeley and id to limit those cities' coffee ases to brands that are Fair certified and usually organic...

...This is a huge victory for farmers, whose incomes will triple when they can sell their coffee at Fair Trade prices...