Fair Trade Coffee

World cof­fee prices have gone down dras­ti­cally in recent years, leav­ing small cof­fee farm­ers unable to make a decent liv­ing. They are often forced into sell­ing their next crops in advance to under­handed mid­dle­men who don’t give fair mar­ket value. Fair Trade Certified cof­fee guar­an­tees that a fair price was paid to the farmer and that the farm­ers are part of a demo­c­ra­tic coop­er­a­tive that cuts out the mid­dle­men and sells direct to buyers.

Buying fair trade means you are sup­port­ing inde­pen­dent pro­duc­ers, healthy work­ing con­di­tions, respon­si­ble meth­ods of pro­duc­tion and bet­ter envi­ron­men­tal practices.

Ten Thousand Villages started what is now known as fair trade, back in the 40’s sell­ing needle­work from arti­sans in Peurto Rica. Then Oxfam took the man­tle in the 50’s, sell­ing crafts made by Chinese refugees. It has now grown to over $4 bil­lion US in sales in 2008, with 746 pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions in 58 devel­op­ing coun­tries. Not just rel­e­gated to cof­fee and hand­crafts, you can now pur­chase a num­ber of other fair trade cer­ti­fied prod­ucts, from quinoa and honey to wine and roses.

Canadians love fair trade coffee

Learn about the BestFairTrade stamp