COFFEE NEWS

… coffee companies are valuing social issues over coffee quality.

Coffeereview.com got hip to the issue and has come out with a 1 to 100 rating system for Fair Trade certified coffees similar to those well-known wine scales, each complete with a couple of graphs of classic wine-like descriptors: “a dense and chewy coffee with an elegant, silky velvet finish” with “tobacco-notes” and “musty earthiness”.

“Amy & David Wilding Davies grow coffee on eastern facing slopes in the Chipinge region of Zimbabwe in beautifully rich red soils. They have made the effort to maintain 50% of Ashanti in its natural state for conservation of the indiginous forest….The 250 full time employees and their families are housed on the farm in traditional houses with additional communal cooking facilities and running water. The welfare of their employees and families is important to Amy & David. All employees and their children are fed a hot meal each day at lunchtime. Amy & David were awarded ‘Coffee Growers of the Year’ for 2003 in Zimbabwe.” Furthermore they remit a percentage of their sales back to the people living in rural districts;”Every year the children, parents and teachers come from Maundwa Primary School to pick coffee and raise money for their many needs. Ashanti donates 10% of their picking totals back to the school as well as a percentage of all our yearly sales.”

I continued looking for information about Fair Trade and certification of what they were doing, and found nothing. Fair trade is geared to the small grower and the co-op, and I thought that it might not work for a private grower. I contacted them and manager David Brennen replied:

“The short answer is that it’s a bit of a square peg - round hole situation. Although we use responsible practices that parallel those of the Fairtrade movement and similar ethical organizations, our grower direct business model doesn’t really fit into the Fairtrade structural framework.

We don’t really fit on the grower side because a Fairtrade grower must be either a smallholder farmer who is a member of a licensed coop, or a commercial operator whose labour force is economically disadvantaged or marginalized by the conventional trading system.

We’re neither, since we’re not a smallholder, and since our labour force isn’t economically disadvantaged or marginalized. We already operate in a socially and economically responsible way that meets and in many ways exceeds the substantive objectives of leading ethical organizations.

We don’t fit in the Fairtrade importer and roaster categories because we don’t buy coffee from anyone – we grow, import and roast our own coffee, and no payment changes hands between any roasters, importers or producers. “

I wanted to learn more before I wrote about this. After all, I keep promoting Fair Trade, and here is the outsider, dare I say white farmer, setting up in Zimbabwe and is this something that I can support? It got far more complex. I learned from the Mail & Guardian that:

A white commercial farmer was chased off his land in Zimbabwe and the manager of a coffee plantation was beaten up by gun-toting men, the owners of the properties told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Thursday.

Allan Warner, a South African farm manager, received 12 stitches on his head after he was beaten up by a group of about 15 armed men at a coffee farm near the town of Chipinge, in southeastern Zimbabwe.

“We were on the farm on Wednesday morning when we were attacked by a group of militia armed with a Uzi automatic gun,” said coffee farmer David Wilding-Davies.

“Shots were fired and a farm manager was attacked with a steel pipe, resulting in him having to get 12 stitches,” Wilding-Davies, a Canadian investor who bought the Ashanti coffee farm in 2000, told AFP by telephone.

And it turns out that Amy and David, owners of Ashanti, did lose their homestead and the custodial properties. David Brennen responded again:

“Title to these properties remains unchanged and court orders are in place directing possession to be returned to David and Amy, so from a legal standpoint at least, we control the properties.

However the reality on the ground is different. Possession of the homestead was seized last year, putting David and Amy out of their home, and the existing court orders are essentially unenforceable due to the political situation.

We have this year’s coffee crop off the custodial property and in transit to Canada now, giving us assured production for this year. A manager is working a reduced portion of the remaining custodial property, but future coffee crops are uncertain due to seizure of large tracts of the best land, and the very unstable political climate.

The farms that are taken are essentially stripped of everything that will produce a quick cash return for the new possessors, and rapidly degenerate into a state of neglect. As a consequence, production of some of the best East African coffee has been lost.”

Amy and David are looking for new land in more stable parts of Africa, and hope to re-establish themselves. I have erased a dozen cliched endings about the flavour of tears and will only say that when I drink my Ashanti coffee tomorrow in the snowbound hut at the top of Blue Mountain, it will taste very different.

Source:

http://www.ashanticoffee.com/index.html

2. Get a local roast. Brew coffee at home? Then get to know your local coffee roaster — You can get a quick list of fair trade coffee roasters in your state here to start. Not only will you support local business, you’ll also get tastier, freshly roasted coffee. Plus, you won’t incur more food travel miles by having your coffee shipped to you from, say, Seattle. Unless you live in Seattle, in which case you might try Pura Vida or Cafe Humana.

3. Opt for organic and fair trade. Why organic? So people don’t have to pick coffee amid pesticides, and so you don’t have to drink pesticides. Why fair trade? Fair trade coffee ensures that farmer co-ops receive at least $1.26 per lb of green coffee — a lot more than most coffee farmers get in the commodity market. Finding double-certified (both organic and fair trade) coffee isn’t hard — And in fact, it’s a fast-growing niche! Chances are, if your coffee roaster offers fair trade, it also offers double-certified coffee; about 80% of the fair trade certified coffee coming into the US is also organic. And if you’re up for a challenge, you might look for triple-certification (organic, fair trade, and shade grown), but those are rather tough to find, especially locally.

4. Step away from that Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks gets great PR — They have excellent marketing people. But beyond the miniscule amount of fair trade and organic coffees offered in those ubiquitous stores (the mermaid doesn’t have a single blend that’s both fair trade AND organic), Starbucks has also been charged with unfair and predatory business practices that drives out local businesses, as well as union-busting. Or if you must go — maybe because all your local indie stores have already gone kaput — take the Starbucks Challenge

5. Check out your local indie coffee shop, especially if they offer organic or fair trade options. If you had a big Starbucks habit, you’ll be in for a shock, because each indie coffee shop will be — gasp — different! It’ll be a thrilling coffee adventure that’ll keep your money in the local economy. Plus, indie coffee shops usually come with a lot of little privileges, like free wifi, locally baked goods, and friendly owners who listen to what you want — and might change things up for you (again, amenities will depend on location). Which brings us to –

6. Convert your coffeehouse. Dilemma: Your coffee shop’s cute and local, but it doesn’t brew anything organic or fair trade. What’s a coffee addict to do? If you’re feeling up to it, have a little chat with the owner or other people working there, starting with, “Hey, I love your coffee shop, and I was wondering….” Not that brave? Then send your coffee shop an email: “Hi! My name is [insert name] and I’m a Treehugger! Also, I love your coffee shop, and I would bike over with all my Treehugging friends every morning if you offered organic, fair trade coffee….”

7. Relax with your coffee. Resist the temptation to freak out because you can’t find a triple-certified, solar-power-roasted coffee from a local cafe that composts and uses only CFL bulbs. That kind of all-or nothing thinking will only lead to a sad, Nescafe overdose! There is no “perfect” cup of coffee. Plus, each of our situations has its weird quirks. Maybe you’re in a town where the only indie coffee shop’s owned by a Hummer-loving oil magnate — in which case your best option might be to get the closest Cooperative Coffees company to ship some java over to you, ASAP….

Drink happy, stay caffeinated –

Source:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/fair_trade_organic_coffee.php

From Salon:

Until now, however, there has been a special provision for “grower groups” that made certification practical for farmer cooperatives in the Third World, whose memberships can reach into the thousands. Because of the immense logistical demands of inspecting every farm in a large co-op, a compromise was reached: An organic inspector would randomly visit only a portion of the group’s farms each year, usually 20 percent. The grower groups would then self-police the remainder through a manager who made sure they followed the rules. The following year, an inspector would return and visit another 20 percent of the farms. After five years, all farms would be inspected.

But in the ruling made public this month, the National Organic Program overturned that system, saying every farm in a grower group must now be visited and inspected annually—as has been the practice in the United States—rather than only a percentage.

Rodney North of Equal Exchange tells TreeHugger that this move would decertify “tens of thousands of small-scale organic farmers around the world” currently certified through their farmer co-ops. “This would include most of the world’s Fair Trade Certified co-ops,” he says. “Not only would this be a huge economic blow to these farmers and their communities, it would also be a big step backwards for the environment, and would shrink the supply of organic foods (especially coffee, tea, bananas, chocolate, and sugar) for U.S. consumers.”

In response, Equal Exchange and the National Organic Coalition have put together a petition to the USDA. Note: The deadline to sign the petition is Tuesday, April 24th.

Call us pessimists, but we don’t think it’s in the USDA’s best interest to tick off a bunch of highly caffeinated people. And if chocolate is pulled into the ring? Prepare for one whopper of a throwdown.

Source:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/is_organic_coff.php

JavaPop, which is distributed by Snapple, is available in five varieties: Espresso, Vanilla, Mocha, Hazelnut, and Caramel. It features fair-trade-certified, organic coffee beans from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, as well as freshly pressed organic cane juice.

Another nice touch: JavaPop uses recycled packaging materials, including recycled and repurposed bottles. ::JavaPop

Fair trade ensures that small farmers in developing countries receive equitable compensation for their labors, or what counts as a living wage in their country of origin. Too often, they watch their hard-earned profits whisked away by predatory middlemen.

By demanding fair-trade products, you’re leveraging your power as a consumer to push for better trading conditions and fair returns for marginalized producers and workers. Third-party certification groups audit the companies that bear their seal, so you’re not just taking them at their word, which self-certification makes you do.

TreeHugger believes that sustainable, equitable trade, not aid, can help alleviate poverty in the developing world. To learn more about fair-trade-certified products in the United States, visit the Web site of Transfair U.S.A., the only third-party certifier of fair-trade products in America. ::Dunkin Donuts

Source:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/dunkin_donuts.php