Fair Trade

If anyone is paying attention it’s Winter Solstice here in the Southern Hemisphere. Being the shortest day of the year I thought that it was ironic that the sun made a brief appearance, seeing how it’s been cloudy, dark and rainy for days on end in Cape Town.

Theoretically after this day we are past the dead of winter and should be making our ascent towards spring, perhaps the sun was just a sign that summer is on its way, and gives me hope that the worst of the winter is behind us…

Just a thought on the topic of Fair trade which was brought up by Dave Donde at Pecha Kuche a couple of nights ago…is that it seems that consumers these days are pretty ignorant when it comes to purchasing not just coffee but products in general. Using coffee as an analogy, people are generally naïve of the fact that the cappuccino, that one is drinking in a café is the product of some pretty damn hard labour way back in the value chain and perhaps the result of exploitation of some poor guy in Ethiopia, Guatemala or other big coffee producing country. There’s a great documentary about this called Black Gold that all coffee lovers should go see.

Dave brought up a good point that the commodity price of coffee is approximately $1.30 per kilo while the Fair Trade price of coffee is approximately $1.60 per kilo, and he made the point that 30 cents is not a lot for the poor farmer back in Ethiopia. For those of you who attended Pecha Kucha he mentioned that the Origin Roasting Company have, to date never paid below the $5 mark. While you may think that this is bad business and that they are getting a raw deal…

I think the point he was trying to make is that they have developed relationships with their various coffee co-ops, and with that guaranteed the quality of the coffee berry which they purchase from them. At the same time, they've made sure that the farmers are well compensated. This relationship that they have developed is what brings about the term “relationship coffee” that you may have heard being thrown around from time to time.

At the end of the day, I think the less demand there is for products being produced via exploitation, means that less people would be exploited; and the less people are being exploited, means that quality of products they produce would be better. Without trying to sound like I’m trying to push a bunch of hippie crap, I believe that consumers should try to be more aware of what they are purchasing and where the end product originates from. This way people can all do their bit to alleviate the exploitation of the less fortunate and make way for social and sustainable economic development. Imagine, there could be a bunch of little kids in China being whipped to stitch those hand made Denims that you’re wearing, not that my dad ever did that to me when he owned his own textile factory…I swear.