Consumer Meets Producer: Waking Up to the Hidden Costs of Fair Trade Coffee
The following entry is composed by Lindsay Etheredge, student at the University of Puget Sound and current intern with WFP in Oaxaca.
(Pascual Hernandez Ruiz, a small coffee producer with the CIRSA cooperative, inspects coffee beans as they are separated from their outer fruit covering by a small hand-cranked machine called a "despulpadora". Photo by Kelsey Beaman.) (Kelsey Quam and Leigh Barrick carrying freshly-picked coffee fruit. Photo by Brittany Mars.)
I, like many Seattle natives, am a big consumer of coffee. There’s nothing as satisfying for me as a steaming cup of coffee on a cold, cloudy northwest morning. While I learned a little bit about the fair trade movement in my studies, I had never really sat down with my coffee and thought, “Where does this come from? Who harvested the beans? And how much of the price I pay for this cup is going to the producers?” These questions were all answered and my eyes opened to the social, political, and economic conditions of coffee production on our last delegation trip with Witness for Peace to Chiapas.
Chiapas is a southern state in Mexico with a heavily indigenous population and demonstrates the contradiction of having some of the most staggering levels of poverty while also being the most resource-rich region in the country. We stayed in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas for one week, meeting with different organizations working for human rights, as well as for changes in political and economic conditions in Chiapas. We also traveled outside of the city and for two days stayed in a small community a few hours away called Mercedes Isidoro. We met with directors of CIRSA (Indigenous Communities of the Simojovel de Allende Region), a fair trade coffee cooperative, and stayed in the homes of CIRSA producers in the community. On the first day, we spent several hours with the directors, who explained fair trade coffee, the technical process of producing organic coffee, and the history of the organization and its relation to the historical struggles of the state of Chiapas on a larger scale.
Some of the points that stuck with me most were the incredible struggle, perseverance, and leadership required for this community to create an organization from the ground up, seeking to enter the global fair trade market and to turn a profit from their small parcels of land. They explained the incredible forces they were up against and the time, money, labor and dedication they invested just to find a way to make a simple living.
Another point that surprised me was the critique of fair trade and the reality that profits continued to be low despite having abandoned the conventional coffee producing methods and market. Floor prices for fair trade coffee are set by Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (or FLO), a worldwide non-profit network of fair trade producers, labelers, and experts. This base price has not increased over the last ten years. For one pound of coffee a producer receives $1.26 along with a 10-cent per pound social premium intended to aid community development and a 15- to 20-cent per pound organic premium to cover the higher costs of producing organically. A significant problem for small Mexican organic producers is that Mexico has a relatively higher cost of living than most other coffee-producing countries throughout the world, and with the fluctuating prices of conventional coffee, fair trade prices are sometimes only a fraction higher than prices offered by coyotes, or middlemen, who sell to large transnational coffee companies. In the end, whether consumers pay $10 or $5 for a bag of coffee, producers receive the same $1.26, an income that is barely sufficient to provide for family living costs in communities like Mercedes Isidoro.
The production of coffee by small farmers is a long, complex process that requires meticulous detail and dedication—and even more so if production is organic. Each year the co-op must go through several costly organic recertification processes. Standards are constantly being revised, and the co-op must meet the challenge of adapting to these changes. Not only is there an international certification required from FLO, but also specific certifications necessary for each country to which they export (for CIRSA these include Germany, the U.S., France, and Holland). The physical environment for organic production in each coffee orchard is carefully regulated, requiring the planting of an organically approved variety of trees to provide shade for the coffee trees, natural methods to avoid bug infestations, local production of organic fertilizers, specific methods to reduce the impact of erosion, and de-mossing—which requires using a stick to carefully scrape away the moss on each and every tree. When it is time to harvest, each coffee fruit is picked by hand to avoid damaging the fruit spur and to allow reproduction the following year (in contrast, on flat-land planations large machines shake the trees to collect the coffee fruit). Finally—in a process that takes days—the coffee fruit is put through a small hand-cranked machine to rid it of its outer shell; the resulting beans are then fermented in a concrete basin. In organic production low quality beans are meticulously removed during several hand-selection processes and the high quality beans lain out on a patio to dry in the sun.
On the day we spent viewing this process, CIRSA members explained to us that the degree of labor necessary for organic production is significantly more demanding than with conventional methods. After contrasting the labor input, sacrifice, and amount of marginal profit available to these farmers, I wondered how there are any organic, fair trade coffee producers at all.
While learning more about coffee production and the realities of fair trade was important and revealing, a very powerful part of the experience for me was staying with the family of one CIRSA member, Antonio Perez Gomez, for two days. Entering his house for the first time, I realized I had never before felt such a strong culture clash. We were three North-American girls showing up with our backpacks full of clothes, carrying expensive sleeping bags and wearing our nice hiking shoes, and despite our late arrival, we were almost immediately served dinner by Antonio’s daughter. The house was a small, simple building made from wood and aluminum; the bathroom, a hole covered by boards; and the water, a small outdoor spigot pumping water from the ground. The family, except for the father and oldest daughter, spoke only the indigenous language Tzotzil. This inability to communicate easily made the distance between us feel that much greater.
I felt that I represented many things: wealth, an ignorance of Mexican indigenous culture, and above all, consumerism. On the first night, only minutes after arriving, Antonio asked us, “As consumers, would you want to buy honey?” Since we were expecting most conversation to center on coffee, this question struck us as odd until we learned that the coffee producers were also looking to find a profitable market for honey. Throughout the next two days, it became clear that community members identified us above all as “the consumers.” This label provoked some discussion among the students and I realized I was torn between guilt at the truth that I was a wealthy North-American consumer, and the fact that my very consumption, in this case of coffee, made up the livelihood of our hosts.
In our final meeting with CIRSA and the community, we asked the question “With this experience, what can we do after returning to the U.S., and what message would you like us to take back?” The messages they wanted us to carry with us were of the challenges, labor, and costs involved in producing organic, fair trade coffee. As well, we were asked to share our experience and the story of this community. They wanted us to take this knowledge and spread it to our friends, family, and communities and inspire support for fair trade and consciousness in consumer habits. Many members of the community and the organization repeated the sentiment that, while it is tremendously important to pressure fair trade organizations like FLO and to help increase the fair trade price, it is also necessary that U.S. consumers change their buying practices.
The experience of dropping into the lives of these impoverished, overworked and yet exceptionally dedicated people was something so different from the life I live in the U.S.—and even here in Oaxaca—that it took a while to process. It was difficult to observe and only superficially experience that level of poverty and struggle and then reconcile it with my own very comfortable and comparatively materialistic lifestyle. While I realize that consumerism and the endless desire for material goods is a reality in the U.S., I hope to be a more conscientious consumer and influence others to look for products and companies that fairly distribute profits to their producers.
Readers can help improve the situation for small coffee producers in Mexico in a number of ways, including the regular purchase of only fairly traded products from companies such as Equal Exchange. Also, consider writing to Equal Exchange requesting that the company pressure FLO to increase the fair trade price of coffee (www.equalexchange.com/faq-form/).
Visit www.equalexchange.com/get-involved for more information on fair trade and additional ways to act.
