WHY THE COFFEE BUSINESS?
In 2007 owners Bill & Julie Douglass opened Artisans Fairtrade, a store dedicated to helping impoverished people around the world. As avid travelers we had seen many examples of people who had been socially, politically, economically and even environmentally displaced through no fault of their own. We also noticed that in many cases little if anything was being done to compensate those whose traditional livelihoods had been lost. In trying to imagine some way to help, I learned about Fair Trade.
FAIRTRADE
A simple definition of Fair Trade is that it is a system of exchange whereby the producer of a good or service is paid a fair price or wage. Fair Trade companies are often started by individuals who recognize the plight of a particular group of people and help them to either revive a traditional craft or product or learn a new one. The company then links up with global fairtrade organizations like the Fair Trade Federation and are discovered by retailers like us. One of the fair trade products I discovered was coffee. I learned that in some areas of the world small scale coffee farmers were so exploited by coffee exporters that they couldn't afford to survive without free labor. The free labor force often came by way of children who were kept out of school to help keep the plantation going. Many small farmers went out of business altogether and were replaced by big coffee growing companies who cleared the land and attempted to impose their "rational" models of farming by clearing forests and using pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Using mass production techniques brought the price of coffee down for companies like Nescafe and Folgers. The result was that American expectations about coffee prices and quality were based upon unsustainable economic practices and inferior products. There were consequences for the inhabitants (human and animal) of coffee regions as well. Most cannot compete with mass production techniques. The market value of coffee cannot sustain small growers.
A DAY ON A SMALL COFFEE FARM
Coffee plants have a characteristic that makes harvesting them hugely labor intensive-the coffee cherries they produce do not all ripen at the same time. To harvest ripe flavorful fruit it is necessary to pick each by hand. Since the coffee plants must be intermingled with larger shadier trees, the people who pick them must walk among the plants and carry their harvest on their backs to a place where they can sort the contents of their bags. The sorting is a way of grading size, ripeness and quality. Once this is complete the pickers must haul their load to the weighing station, where they are paid. The next step is to remove the flesh of the coffee cherry from the bean, a process that could involve some or all of the steps of washing, soaking, raking and drying. over the course of several days or weeks.
THE COST OF SUSTAINABILITY
Fair Trade organizers were not the only one's to recognize that the coffee industry was destructive to environmental and social systems. A new kind of coffee buyer has emerged, one who not only works one on one with small farmers but who also directly represents them within the global marketplace.
Fair Trade organizers began working one on one with particular villages they tried to address some of these problems by paying a fair price, encouraging reforestation (coffee plants need shade to thrive) and organic methods, and by dedicating resources to local schools and infrastructure.
In 2008, in preparation for a Fair Trade Day celebration at my store, I decided to call coffee shops in Reno and see if I could get one to cater our event with fair trade coffee. That's when I discovered that Reno did not have a coffee shop devoted to Fair Trade and that is how the idea for Fairly Grounded was born.
Since then I've learned about direct trade, which also pays a fair price to farmers for their beans. The direct trade system, however, is more accessible to the poorest farmers. It also places more emphasis on organic and sustainable farming methods.
