This is a followup to the Fair Trade Coffee Presentation that was given at the October 2010 general council meeting.
You can view the Free Trade Coffee powerpoint presentation here: 
Thanks for letting us
come in and present. Mark hasn't presented on Fair Trade before as I am the
main Fair Trade Coordinator in the group and I understand that a couple of
questions came up that he wasn't fully able to answer. Can you forward this
message to the particular individuals that brought up the concerns?
I believe there was a concern that producers had to pay more. I'm not sure
about the context of that comment but I presume it was generated by two facts:
1. Farmers do have to pay Transfair a fee to get the labeling - this is to
offset the cost for Transfair's work and 2. Transfair does impose quality
controls so that the product is of export quality and that can also drive up
the cost of production.
It should be noted that despite 1 and 2, farmers make more money in profit
through the Certification system than they would otherwise and that is the
proper thing that comparisons should be based on. Both the labeling and the
higher quality allow farmers to make a higher profit which is the GOAL. Also,
with both 1 and 2, if the farm is too small to be able to afford the initial
inputs, Transfair offers loans and donations so that no farm is hindered from
entering the Fair Trade market because of limitations in finances.
The truth remains that many farms that are qualified to be Fair Trade Certified
still cannot get the Certification but the cause of this is lack of consumer
demand. Even for farms that ARE Fair Trade Certified in terms of labour
standards, farmers are forced to sell about 80% of their crop in the regular
market for a lower price because of this lack of demand from consumers. So,
unfortunately many farms that want the labeling cannot get it, but even if they
got the labeling, without the demand there is no gain for the farmer anyways.
I believe there was also a concern about the 'price' of Fair Trade Certified
products to the consumer. The ultimate vision of Fair Trade is to shift the
money from the consumer more evenly to the producer, the manufacturer and the
distributor - right now a majority of it ends up with the manufacturer and the
distributor and hardly anything goes to the producer. The actual cost to the
consumer is not meant to change but again because of the fact that so far a
majority of the companies that support FTC are smaller and unable to produce
the same way in mass quantity the price will be slightly higher. But, we can
see with a company like Cadbury, when they converted their milk chocolate bars
into the Fair Trade Certified line, they are able to sell their Certified bars
at the same price as all their other bars. Also, I don't think it can be denied
that chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar etc are all luxury products that no one
needs so I don't think it's unfair to ask that consumers that choose to consume
these items take into consideration the people that made the product. About 50%
of the cocoa that comes into Canada is made through bonded child labour in the
Ivory Coast - this is an indisputable fact that is mentioned in trade textbooks
and not some conspiracy statistic. BBC has done news stories on this as well.
Child labour may be justifiable but bonded child labour is something very
different. Consumers have a certain expectation for how much a 'chocolate bar'
or a cup of coffee should cost but the sacrifice is in human lives across the
world.
Thank you again for inviting us to present. I would like to continue this
conversation with you if there is still concern. On a more personal note and
not intending to make a low-ball comment: I was raised in the Catholic Church
and know about the emphasis on loving your neighbor in the faith. To me every
time a product is bought, every person that was involved in the making of the
product becomes our neighbor at that instant. We'd all have to increase our
charity work by seven times to compensate for the purchasing choices we make
just to be 'fair'.
Sincerely,
Valantina Amalraj