Background
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is the coffee crisis and why did it happen?
An economic and humanitarian calamity triggered by plunging coffee prices and a glut of low-quality product on the coffee market, the coffee crisis has ravaged coffee-growing communities in developing countries since 1999. After hitting a 30-year low in 2001, the price of coffee has begun a slow recovery in the past several months. Despite this, small scale producers are still unable to earn a decent income. As a result, millions of families lack basic necessities such as health care, education, and, in some cases, adequate food. Many coffee farmers have been forced to abandon their land and migrate elsewhere in search of employment. Fair Trade certification is a significant part of the solution to the coffee crisis.
What is Fair Trade Certified™ coffee?
In the US, Fair Trade Certified™ coffee carries the TransFair certification logo. This logo ensures the small scale coffee producers that make up the coffee cooperatives selling the product are paid a decent living wage, provided direct access to international markets and farm credit that would otherwise not be available to them, and have the ability to build infrastructure within their businesses and local communities.
Where can you get it?
To date, Fair Trade Certified™ coffee is available in over 20,000 retail outlets, including Starbucks and Bruegger’s Bagel Bakeries. Fair Trade Certified™ coffees are also increasingly available in mainstream supermarkets. Companies such as Equal Exchange, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and now, Procter & Gamble’s Millstone, are bringing their Fair Trade products into larger retail outlets all over the US.
Fair Trade Certified™ coffee continues to grow in popularity with consumers. Since 1999, the market for Fair Trade Certified™ coffee has grown at an average annual rate of 72%. In 2004, imports hit 32 million.
What can I do besides buy Fair Trade Certified™ coffee for my own use?
You can participate in Oxfam America’s Check Out Fair Trade campaign, the second phase of its coffee campaign. The campaign is mobilizing activists and supporters to visit their local supermarkets and ask store managers to stock and promote Fair Trade Certified™ coffee.
Check Out Fair Trade campaigners can grade their local supermarkets on their commitment to Fair Trade Certified™ products – whether or not they carry Fair Trade Certified™ products, where the products are placed and how much promotion and consumer education is done for Fair Trade. Information gathered by campaigners will influence Oxfam’s research on leading national supermarket chains and help track supermarket response to Check Out Fair Trade. For more information on the campaign and tolls for organizers, visit: www.oxfamamerica.org/coffee_supermarket.
Why does Oxfam care about Fair Trade Certified™ coffee?
Oxfam America is a Boston-based international development and relief agency that works to build livelihoods and save lives. In collaboration with local partners, Oxfam delivers development programs, emergency relief services, and campaigns for change in global practices and policies that keep people in poverty.
Coffee is one of the most heavily traded global commodities and is the largest source of export income for many developing countries. The repercussions of the coffee crisis have been disastrous to global communities and economies alike. In 2002 Oxfam launched a worldwide campaign, What’s That in Your Coffee?, to create international concern about the plight of coffee farmers and provide them with humanitarian relief, while seeking concrete solutions to the coffee crisis. Oxfam urges consumers everywhere to purchase Fair Trade Certified™ coffee, which provides farmers with more income, and to pressure the industry to pay decent prices for coffee crops. Long-term solutions must involve small-scale coffee producers having greater access to the international coffee markets, access to farm credit and greater representation in the international debate on coffee.