Coffee and Fair Trade

Facing the world coffee price crisis, fair trade appears as a means to overcome the very difficult situation a million primarily small Latin American producers. Coffee producing countries are hard hit by the global coffee prices crisis due to overproduction Brazilian and Vietnamese.

Faced with this crisis, ecology and fair trade seen as a means to remedy the very problematic situation of a million little essentially Latin American producers, according to a study by the World Bank.

The coffee market through a serious crisis today. The Coffee sector workers are no longer able to live on their production and market prices set by the four main multinationals to indecent profits, are too low to allow producers to identify the benefits they need to continue their activity. Furthermore, coffee is a product too high yield, even quality decreases.

Consequence of the lack of an international coffee price stabilization system and raw materials in general, the coffee grower’s situation is not sustainable.

Producers have opted for a socially equitable production have made considerable economic benefits compared to the average of traditional producers says the study published by the World Bank in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the International Labour Organization coffee and the UN Conference on trade and development.

Mexico and Peru are the main producers of ecological and fair trade coffee, followed by Guatemala, Colombia, Nicaragua, Tanzania and Costa Rica.

The fair trade system was created in Europe and North America by international development agencies wishing to support artisans and producers in the South.

It was in 1946, in North America, the Mennonite International Development Agency (now known as the Mennonite Central Committee) established the first direct purchase project with poor artisans in Latin America.

In Europe in 1950, Oxfam began to organize the sale of crafts made by Chinese refugees in shops in Britain, and shortly later, a group of activists and Dutch activists began to directly import wood carvings Haitian to help craftsmen and women to become economically independent. By eliminating the middleman, fair trade aims to leave a greater share of profits to producers.

The Fair Trade certification emerged in the late 80s. This is a monitoring system established to ensure that both producers and importers meet a specific set of social and environmental criteria.

A distinctive logo allows consumers and consumers to recognize the fair trade products. Coffee was the first certified fair trade product in the market. In some European countries, large coffee companies quickly offered fair trade coffee in supermarkets and cafes. Moreover, the distribution has grown more slowly.

Coffee is currently the Fair Trade Certified product most sold on the market. In 2015, 102 producers and producer groups in 22 countries in all producing regions grow fair trade coffee. These groups are mainly in South America and Africa, but also in Asia.

After oil, coffee is one of the most important commodities in the world market that sustains some 35 million farmers. Nine developing countries depend for more than 20% of their exports and four other countries for more than half of their sales abroad.

The first fair trade certification program was launched in 1988 in the Netherlands. The Max Havelaar Foundation was named in honor of the hero of a Dutch novel of the 19th century who denounced the mistreatment of coffee workers during the Dutch colonial period.