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Response to a Fair Trade Naysayer
An unfortunate, although increasingly common response to new, against-the-grain ideas (like Fair Trade) is the outcry from skeptical naysayers who’d prefer to put a stop to anything that challenges their view of the world. So, with Fair Trade gaining momentum worldwide, more folks have started paying attention to it, which also means that more people are looking for an excuse to call Fair Trade “bad”.
CSM published this article declaring Fair Trade a "bad deal". We respecfully disagree.
Fair Trade is a movement that provides an alternative to free trade by forming sustainable trade relationships with producer groups that create a host of positive repercussions, from greener practices and local empowerment to, yes, higher prices for their products. Those that support neo-classical economics want to prove that Fair Trade doesn’t work, because the opposite would imply that the fault lies with them.
The fact that articles like Gene Callahan's "Fair Trade Coffee: Not Worth a Hill of Beans" are starting to surface is a sign that free trade promoters have started to notice the chord that Fair Trade strikes with consumers, and they are getting worried. Consumers must be aware of attempts to sway them by distinguishing truth from distortion.
Below is a letter to the Editor written by Monika Maria Firl, Producer Relations for Cooperative Coffees, in response to the above article.
More on why traditional supply and demand economics does not create oversupply of Fair Trade products can be found here as well as this response to an article by Mr Callahan can be read here and this response too.
Dear Editors:
I have read with great dismay the mix of fallacy and false assumptions presented in the August 8 article by Gene Callahan entitled: Fair Trade Coffee: Not Worth a Hill of Beans.
In fact, having worked six years shoulder to shoulder with small-scale coffee farmers in southern Mexico and Central America to improve their organic production and to find more promising Fair Trade markets, I have seen Fair Trade offer hope, structure and justice to the lives of thousands of farmers!
If you ask the 500 coffee-growing families in and around the village of Acteal, Chiapas about Fair Trade – you might hear a very different opinion from that of Mr. Callahan. Living as internal refugees in the aftermath of the Acteal Christmas massacre in 1997, these villagers had lost their homes, access to land and any promise for a dignified life. But in 2000 they got together and organized the coffee-farmer cooperative Maya Vinic. Two years later they sold their first container of organic, high quality coffee to Cooperative Coffees, a coop of 24 independent and locally owned Fair Trade coffee roasters (with whom I now have the privilege and opportunity to work with!).
This first gesture in Fair Trade put their community back on a positive track. And the human, developmental and spiritual progress since then has been phenomenal! The farmers eventually were able to recover their lands and continue to grow their coffee using sustainable, organic practices as their fathers and their grandfathers did. Using smart terracing and a diversified canopy of shade trees the soil stays healthy and the coffee yields and cup quality continue to improve. But today, instead of having no alternatives other than selling to the rapacious middlemen of the so-called "free market", they now negotiate a living wage via Fair Trade contracts for each of their farmer members. Out of their collective "social fund", they have constructed a new warehouse, built a processing plant, run a community radio station and are developing a best practices organic demonstration plot to use as a living class room for their members and non-members in the community.
This is just one example of many from the vast network of farmer coops Cooperative Coffees and other Fair Trade buyers have developed trade partnerships. I could go on and on....
Unfortunately when Mr. Callahan clings to the classic "laws of supply and demand" – he has chosen a simplistic approach to understanding macro-economics. The fact is that coffee prices set in the New York "C" market – the commodities marketplace that vulnerable coffee farmers (and other commodities producers) live and die by – have very little to do these days with supply and demand. In today's world, prices are set by speculation. And speculators buffered by very deep financial pockets can easily distort the traditional, classroom rules of economics!
Mr. Callahan's assumptions regarding a poor farmers employment options, production practices and development potential are equally out of touch with reality. Yes Fair Trade faces many, many true challenges. But Mr. Callahan's article addresses none of them. For those of us seeking a fairer society, it is apparent that the first beast we must slay is named "Ignorance."
For a prestigious journal like the Christian Science Monitor, I would strongly encourage your qualified staff to conduct some independent investigation into the accomplishments of Fair Trade. I think you will be very pleasantly surprised.
Monika Maria Firl
Montreal, QC Canada
