{and why we should be drinking Fair Trade Coffee}

With almost all of the news media’s attention focused on Afghanistan for the past several months, the public has received very little information from other parts of the world. 

However, over the past several months, the Social Justice Commission [in Canada] has received messages from Mexico and Central America about famine in many parts of the region caused by drought and extremely low coffee prices. Even in the best of times, workers in the coffee fields are very poorly paid and often endure extremely difficult living and working conditions.

We had been questioning ourselves as to what we might be able to do in the short and medium-term to help, even if only in a small way, when we received notice that a number of U.S. based groups were planning a Fair Trade Coffee Day of Action on December 8th. By the time you read this article, that day will have passed. However, it is not the date that is important but the action.

Guatemala may be the world's seventh-largest coffee producer, but plummeting coffee prices have created an economic crisis. Guatemalans have seen devastating impacts; in fact some farmers are now only earning about 50 cents per pound. And while Guatemalans struggle to survive against falling prices, North American consumers have seen higher costs at their local coffee shop, and western corporations dealing in coffee have seen soaring profits.

A report in spring 2000 by the Commission for the Verification of Corporate Codes of Conduct revealed that half of all Guatemalan coffee pickers in its survey were earning less than half of the legal minimum wage of $2.48 per day. This makes it difficult, and sometimes impossible, for them to provide adequately for their families. Many go without running water, electricity, proper nutrition and education. Since then, the plight of these workers has worsened considerably.

As a result of the low coffee prices, tens of thousands of Mexican coffee farmers have fled their fields in search of incomes to feed their families. The Salvadoran government acknowledged the loss of over 30,000 jobs due to the price slump. In Nicaragua, thousands of displaced coffee workers have set up makeshift refugee camps in regional cities to demand work, land, and food for their families. Some 30,000 Panamanian indigenous families that depend on seasonal coffee-picking wages to supplement subsistence agriculture, face hunger from plummeting prices. The World Food Program has estimated that 150,000 refugees have been created as a result of this crisis. Hundreds have died, and thousands may follow.

Many attribute the price slump to World Bank and Asian Development Bank policies implemented in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which gave generous loans to Vietnam to promote their coffee industry. Vietnam quickly went from being one of the world's smallest coffee producers to the second largest. Most countries, especially those in Central America, cannot compete with Vietnam's labor costs.

Hope

However, fair trade farming is offering new hope to Guatemalan coffee farmers. Fair trade farming offers them a stable, guaranteed price year-round and offers farmers a way to improve their lives in an environmentally sustainable way.

The good news is that consumers have the power to begin making a difference in farmers' lives NOW! If we act together to educate consumers and promote Fair Trade Certified coffee, we can expand the desperately needed market for fair trade coffee and send a powerful message to the coffee industry that consumers demand coffee free from social and environmental exploitation. Due to a lack of demand, very few coffee producers who strive to meet laudable labor and environmental standards are able to sell their product at the fair trade price.

Here are some of its benefits:
* It pays farmers a decent price for their harvest (about five times what they are getting today)
* It creates direct trade links between consumers and the farmers and their cooperatives
* It provides access to affordable credit, helping farmers stay out of debt
* It promotes sustainable practices, such as organic farming, that help protect the environment

In Western Australia, Fair Trade coffee can be purchased at the One World Shops in Perth (884 Hay Street on the northern side, about 5-10mins walk west from the mall) and Fremantle (22 Queen Street), and no doubtedly in other places as well.

Ernie Schibli.

This material draws on work for the: Social Justice Committee of Montreal (Comité pour la justice sociale)

1857 de Maisonneuve W., Montreal, QC, Canada H3H 1J9

tel  (514) 933-6797  fax (514) 933-9517