The 100% Fair-Trade Approach:imitated never duplicated

This article, taken from the CRS site, shares Jackie DeCarlo's perspective on the question of certification. May 9, 2007

http://fairtrade.crs-blog.org/fairtrade/the-100-fair-trade-approach-imitated-never-duplicated/

I am writing this on the plane ride home from Long Beach, where I just participated in the 19th Specialty Coffee Association of America conference – my fourth since I took over the CRS Coffee Program in 2004.  As I think about this year’s conference and compare it with the three previous ones, it occurs to me that Fair Trade has come a long way even during the short time I have been part of the movement.

In 2004, at the SCAA event in Atlanta, Fair Trade was still on the margins of the specialty coffee world – the Fair Trade discussions on the SCAA slate were well attended, but there were relatively few of them.  In 2007, by contrast, it seemed like there were few noteworthy events where Fair Trade was not mentioned.  The Fair Trade message made its way into dozens of presentations by industry leaders, including the keynote by David Robinson of Sweet Unity Farms; Fair Trade logos were all over the trade show floor, on coffee, tea, sugar and chocolate; and Fair Trade was even on the cover of the issue of Specialty Coffee Retailer distributed at the show.  And while the pervasiveness of the Fair Trade message was notable, I find myself thinking a lot about the adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I saw more versions of “Fair Trade lite” this year than ever before, including “Coffee Growers Direct” (Coffee Pacifica, Inc.), “Direct Trade” (Intelligentsia Coffee in Chicago), and “Farm Friendly Direct™” (Portland Roasting).

Whether in their printed materials or in the descriptions that their representatives offered at the show, these companies all use Fair Trade standards as a point of reference.  Unfortunately, the distinctions between their approaches and Fair Trade can get blurred in the process.  And as these corporate trade schemes proliferate, I worry that things are getting awfully confusing for coffee drinkers for whom specialty coffee is neither a professional obligation nor a personal addiction, as it is for me.

So here are a few things to think about when you evaluate whether these “Fair Trade lite” schemes are “good enough”:

Transparency.  While I have no reason to disbelieve the claims made by companies that promote proprietary trading schemes, I also have no easy way to verify the claims they make.  All our Coffee Program partners are either are members of the Fair Trade Federation or sell only Fair Trade Certified coffee.  One has also hired a firm to do a Fair Trade Audit of its business practices.  In every case, our partners have independent third parties validate their claims to 100% Fair Trade status.  By contrast, these companies ask us to take their word for it.  That may be fine for some consumers, but it may give others less confidence in the claims that companies are making.

Pricing, Volume and Production Model.  Intelligentsia famously claims in its Direct Trade literature that it pays at least 25 percent more than Fair Trade minimum prices for all its Direct Trade coffees.  That is pretty extraordinary.  But assuming that is true, it needs to be considered in connection with two other issues: volume and production model.  Folks at the Intelligentsia booth this weekend said 20 of their coffees are Direct Trade.  But these are tiny lots that collectively represent a small percentage of the company’s overall volume.  More importantly, some of its Direct Trade coffees come from large plantations, where there are no guarantees about how much of Intelligentsia’s high prices the owners of those estates pass on to their workers or invest in their education, health or housing.

All Fair Trade, All The Time.  My point with this post is not to trash Intelligentsia or its Direct Trade model.  The plight of landless workers on coffee estates is certainly worthy of our concern, and there is no hope that they will receive just wages if more companies don’t follow Intelligentsia’s lead and pay fair prices for world-class estate coffee.  And Intelligentsia’s focus on quality ultimately helps create an incentive for farmers everywhere to differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive market.  So in that way, Direct Trade is an important contribution for which Intelligentsia deserves credit.

But I would like to remind consumers who may be persuaded by the very high prices that Intelligentsia pays on occasion for its coffee, why so many credible church organizations and NGOs (CRS, Lutheran World Relief, Presbyterian Church USA, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Oxfam America and many others) have cast their lot with Fair Trade, and why so many thousands of small-scale farmers around the world are queued up for Fair Trade Certification.

Fair Trade coffee comes exclusively from cooperatives owned by small-scale family farmers who share in the profits of their sales and make democratic decisions about how Fair Trade’s social premiums are invested for the benefit of the communities where they live.  And we at CRS are proud that our Coffee Program partners are all Fair Trade, all the time, so you don’t have to wonder about what percentage of their coffee is purchased on fair terms or whether your purchases are helping to make wealthy plantation owners even wealthier.

As Fair Trade pushes further into the mainstream of the coffee industry, it will likely give rise to more imitators.  While that may bring benefits for farmers and farmworkers overseas, it is also likely to cause more confusion for consumers who want to maximize the power of their purchases.