Fair Trade Certified
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SUMAC Co-op News
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Two Guelph Businsesses Create One Great Beverage |
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Written by Administrator
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Saturday, 31 January 2009 12:34 |
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Oatmeal Coffee Stout
Planet Bean Coffee & F&M Brewery Team Up!
George Eagleson, Byron Cunningham, Dave Barrett and Elijah Lederman sample F&M Brewery's new Oatmeal Coffee Stout.
Like a mad scientist, F&M Brewery brewmaster George Eagleson has been working on a new creation melding two of the City's most flavourful brands. The brewery is about to launch a mouth watering Coffee Stout with Planet Bean's fresh roasted beans as the signature enhancement.
"Stout and coffee are the perfect combination – both dark roasted and full-bodied. I’m really proud of this one - this truly is history in the tasting," enthuses Eagleson.
"This is an excellent partnership which builds on the success of our two locally celebrated brands", commented Planet Bean Coffee's Byron Cunningham. "It is the kind of partnership between Guelph small businesses that can help us weather the economic storm."
Read The Full Story
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 31 January 2009 12:39 )
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Fair Trade a Fair Shake For Farmers |
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 26 August 2008 15:14 |
Fair Trade came under fire recently with an opinion column written by Gene Callahan in the Guelph Mercury. This reply to the column was written by Bill Barrett. Bill has been involved in experiments in economic democracy like fair trade and co-operatives in Guelph, Ontario for over two decades. He is a founder of one of Canada's first fair trade certified coffee companies, Planet Bean Coffee.
The response to the column written by Mr. Callahan was published in the Guelph Mercury on Saturday August 23, 2008.
The Fair Trade Certified coffee market is not only fairer to farmers than the conventional coffee market, it is an uniquely remarkable way to stimulate economic growth in some of the poorest communities on the earth.
With this statement I hereby throw down the gauntlet in direct challenge to an opinion editorial written by Gene Callahan and published in the Mercury on August 14. Mr. Callahan's opinion that fair trade is damaging to participating farmers can only be described as uniformed and grossly misleading.
In the interest of transparency I must say that for more than a decade I have been involved in promoting, and for much of that time, earning a living from Fair Trade. I am a founder of one Canada's first Fair Trade coffee companies, Guelph's own Planet Bean. Therefore, my very livelihood is wrapped up in the relationship I have with Fair Trade Certified coffee farmer families.
As for Mr. Callahan, his writing comes to us through the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) whose perspective is akin to The Heritage Foundation, The Cato Institute, and Canada's Fraser Institute. The FEE is heavily influenced by conservative economists including the late Milton Friedman. Friedman was a key economic ideologue for the Bush administration, creators of the elephantine U.S. trade deficit, the credit crisis, and a massive debt. According to the U.S. National Debt Clock, the debt was more than $9.5 Trillion on Aug. 15. It is from this pedigree of economic philosophy that Mr. Callahan draws his perspective. Well, sort of ... much of what he has written in his opinion piece appears to be a direct rip-off of a paper published this spring by Marc Sidwell of Britain's Adam Smith Institute, captivatingly entitled "Unfair Trade". I guess in the free market of ideas about the free market there is no need to give credit where credit is due. At least we can thank Mr. Callahan for shortening that thirty page dirge.
The FEE is funded by businesses and individuals who receive tax deductions for donations. Mr. Callahan is in no way exposed to the vagaries of the market, unlike most of the world's small scale farmers. Just as an aside, wouldn't it be nice to see the world's economic pundits' opinions traded on some stock exchange to find their true worth in an unfettered and unsubsidized market?
He begins his critique of Fair Trade with a classic economic discussion of the "law" of supply and demand. According to free-marketistas, demand will dictate supply and the market will develop a "natural" equilibrium between the two. Maybe, but it never has. Pesky "law-breakers" like the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are always messing with "nature", and creating the conditions for shocking market volatility. Coffee provides us with a stunning example.
In the late 80's, arabica coffee prices soared as a result of some frost which damaged a significant part of the harvest in Latin America, limiting supply. This brought in the speculators, more of those "law-breakers" who further drove up the price.
Subsequently, in one of those uncanny light bulb moments at the World Bank, the bank's economists noticed that the price of coffee was going up so they decided it would be a good idea for the farmers of Vietnam to stop growing food and get into coffee. They set up attractive financing mechanisms to encourage farmers to switch over - which they did. Coffee takes several years to bear fruit, so by the time the Vietnamese brought their coffee to market, the price had started to recover from the frost. Suddenly there was a massive oversupply, which drove the price into the ground. Coffee farmers around the world were devastated in what has become known in the industry as the "coffee crisis". Vietnamese farmers now had coffee, not food, and traditional coffee farmers couldn’t sell their coffee for enough to buy the food they needed.
This spring, coffee prices once again began to rise as capital from the turmoil of the U.S. credit crisis flowed to commodities. This influx of cash continues to drive up the price of agricultural commodities like coffee. Billions of dollars have been made by coffee speculators on the NYC, not a penny of which has gone to the farmers.
It is important to note that the market price of coffee is determined at the New York Commodities Exchange (NYC), not at the farm gate. The price of coffee can go up, down or sideways, but the market price never reflects what the farmer gets. The farmer always gets a lower price, in some cases a fraction of the NYC price, especially when the market price is down. Mr. Callahan may be shocked to find out that most of the world's small scale coffee farmers live in earthen huts, have limited or no access to clean water, cook over open fires with wood they have gathered themselves, do not have electricity, and certainly do no have a high-speed internet connection to the NYC so they can monitor the price of coffee to get the best price at their farm gate. They do have a home economy that enables them to produce a great deal of what they need, but the money generated by growing coffee is vital for items like shoes, children's school uniforms, medicines, etcetera.
Market interventions and speculation are the reality of global trade. They are far from natural. Small-scale coffee farmers feel the pain while World Bank economists merely reflect upon their experiments over a single malt scotch. One Guatemalan farmer told me that at the time of the coffee crisis, they were getting thirty-five cents a pound for their raw coffee in the conventional market. Seventy-five cents is the internationally agreed upon cost of production per pound. The Fair Trade Certified minimum price starts at more than $1.30. Planet Bean pays farmers between $1.55 - $2.75 per pound.
Mr. Callahan suggests that farmers faced with difficulty making a living, should migrate to someplace else. In fact this is exactly what happened following the "coffee crisis" . Many coffee farmers are now a part of the global migration of people from rural to urban areas. The collapse of all kinds of farm based economies is fuelling rapid urbanization around the world. Research has shown that very few of these migrants find work in the city and instead find themselves living on the streets or worse. Research has also shown that Fair Trade Certified coffee farmers have a low level of migration and stay on their farms.
In 2002, I interviewed a woman tending her corn field in a valley in Oaxaca, Mexico. Although she was a coffee farmer, she was not selling into the Fair Trade market. She said her husband had left months earlier to cross into the U.S. to work illegally because they couldn't make ends meet. She hadn't heard from him and was worried for his life. Instead of migrating, some farmers will grow drugs as a means of generating cash for their household needs.
Migration is a brutal way to solve a trade problem, and the existence of borders makes it more so. Interestingly, Adam Smith identified borders as an impediment to free trade. He reasoned that people without the freedom of mobility would never have the ability to freely move in the market. I wonder if the elemination of the U.S. border is part of Mr. Callahan's free trade prescription, or did he skip that part of Smith's The Wealth of Nations.
In the midst of this nightmare market scenario, allow me make a small proposal. What if we, as agents in the marketplace, were to develop a system that would allow us to avoid the NYC, and all the speculators and middle men in the market? What if we could skip over the nation state and its WTO and World Bank trade manipulators, and have a direct trade with coffee farmers? What if we were to participate in negotiating a farm gate price that reflects our notion of value and that is reasonable to the farmer? Would that not be approaching the kind of trade system that would enable us the freedom to collectively benefit from a global free exchange of goods and services?
Fair Trade Certified products provide us with this unique way of interacting with the market. The process is globally organized by the Fair Trade Labelling Organization and various national initiatives like Transfair Canada. These third party entities ensure the authenticity of the fair trade relationship communicated through the Transfair label and are run, not by stock traders or government officials, but by citizens.
Given the attempt by fair traders to create authentic trade relationships globally, one wonders why Mr. Callahan doesn't spend his time decrying the impact of things like agricultural subsidies which are great distorters of trade, instead of bashing the relatively marginal economic project of Fair Trade. For example in his own state, Alabama, cotton farmers have received millions of dollars from the US government as subsidies. Billions of dollars continue to be provided to US cotton farmers driving the global price of cotton down by nearly 25%. In January this year I visited Maharastra, India and interviewed the widows of cotton farmers whose husbands had killed themselves by drinking pesticides. The global depression of cotton prices was identified as a major cause of these suicides, now numbering in the tens of thousands . I also visited Fair Trade Certified cotton farmers in Gujarat, whose home economies were, in striking contrast, thriving as a result of fair prices. Cotton farmers in Africa are also being clobbered by the US subsidies.
Mr. Callahan expresses the need for coffee farmers to learn new and more viable trades. There is no doubt about that coffee growing regions to diversify their economies, but how should they go about it? These regions are very isolated, and rarely have anything resembling a community infrastructure. Even roads, which our friend Adam Smith described from a market development perspective as "the greatest of all improvements", barely exist. What is most amazing about Fair Trade, from my perspective, is its ability to create social and economic infrastructure in a vacuum. The market brings people together and the face-to-face nature of Fair Trade causes people to create community organizations, co-operatives, credit unions, crop improvement groups, schools, and even roads. With a fair price for farmers' products, there is enough wealth in the local economy to create the diversity and new enterprise development that Mr. Callahan advocates.
The Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union of Ethiopia, suppliers to Planet Bean, provides an excellent example. There are new schools, additional classrooms, medical stations, and clean water supplies that exist now, that were not around five years ago, specifically because people in Guelph and elsewhere bought their coffee. New roads are in the plans. There are women farmers in Peru who have been able to send their children to school and create a credit union, in part because of the Cafe Femenino coffee people have purchased here. The market is developing in these communities because of the business model we use - Fair Trade. Mr. Callahan should be happy to know that these markets, unlike his cotton farmer neighbours, develop with little state support because their countries are so poor.
At one point in Mr. Callahan's text he makes a sudden u-turn from his free market fundamentalism and advocates that people should buy shade grown coffee to help the environment. For folks interested in this coffee you should know that virtually all of the Fair Trade Certified arabica coffee sold in North America is shade grown, but beware, it also helps farmers.
I am not suggesting that Fair Trade is perfect. It is, however, a far more equitable exchange of goods and services than is the conventional market. It is, in fact, another kind of market driven by people making informed, ethical and ecological choices. And it actually exists, unlike the "free market" fantasy world of Mr. Callahan.
Bill Barrett |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 26 August 2008 15:22 )
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Planet Bean Signs Epic Trademark Agreement |
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Written by Administrator
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Wednesday, 20 August 2008 18:32 |
Planet Bean Signs Trademarking and Licensing Agreement with Ethiopia The first Canadian coffee company to become licensed distributor of Ethiopia's trademarked coffees
GUELPH, ONTARIO - October 3, 2007 - Planet Bean, a Canadian pioneer fair trade coffee roaster joins the growing network of licensed distributors of Ethiopia's trademarked coffees.
Planet Bean is a company that buys and roasts only 100% certified fair trade coffees. It has been selling, distributing and serving fair trade coffee for a decade in Guelph, Ontario.
The company has been purchasing Ethiopian coffees from the OROMIA Coffee Farmers Union since 2002. The Ethiopian fine coffees it roasts include Yirgachaffe, Harar and Sidamo, which are some of the company's top sellers. It plans to increase its current quantity of these trademarked coffees.
Bill Barrett, one of the Planet Bean cooperative members stated, "The Ethiopians have been growing and drinking coffee longer than anyone on earth. I think they should control the rights to their own coffee origins. This agreement is consistent with our company's ethical approach, and it recognizes the excellence and uniqueness of Ethiopian coffees."
After signing the agreement on behalf of Planet Bean, Byron Cunningham, the company's president, expressed his pleasure that his country, Canada, has registered all the three coffees and that his company has taken the lead in becoming the first one to sign in Canada. He said that he is hopeful that his company's acknowledgement of these trademarks will encourage many others to sign the license agreement.
Mr. Abdurahim Mohammed Ali, Charge' d'Affairs of the Ethiopian Embassy to Canada said, "It is a great occasion to witness the induction of Planet Bean Coffee to the family of the network of Ethiopian trademarked coffees. Ethiopia welcomes this first Canadian licensee and I am quite confident that many more companies will follow its example throughout Canada."
An extensive mobilization and public awareness outreach program is underway across the many coffee growing regions of Ethiopia to heighten interest and participation in the Initiative. At the same time, licensed distribution in Ethiopia's major fine coffee export markets is expanding to include coffee brokers, roasters, and retailers.
Currently there are 23 licensed distributors and about forty five companies in active dialogue with Ethiopia. The long term target is to license 150-200 critical players in the fine coffee industry worldwide. Extensive consumer awareness resulting from the Oxfam campaign last year has been effective in fueling the licensing efforts of Ethiopia, as patrons ask that their coffee companies support Ethiopia in its endeavor to improve the livelihood of millions of farmers across the country.
Ethiopia is posed to have an excellent chance at the 2008 SCAA annual conference to showcase its Fine Coffees Initiative and their brands, as well as its rich heritage, history and culture as it has been selected by the Specialty Coffee Association of America to be the first African Portrait Country during the next conference in Minneapolis, incidentally termed 'Roots', coinciding with Ethiopia as the undisputed origin of coffee.
Notes:
The Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office (EIPO) is spearheading the Ethiopian Trademarking and Licensing Initiative
The Initiative has financial support from the UK's Department for International Development, and advice and training from Washington DC based NGO Light Years IP, but no funding directly from coffee companies.
The EIPO and law firm Arnold and Porter have secured Trademarks in 28+ countries to date. In the US a Trademark for Yirgacheffe has been secured and the two others are still being sought despite opposition. More information on the Initiative and who is supporting it is available on the dedicated website www.ethiopiancoffeenetwork.com. For more insights into Ethiopian coffee farmers' lives and the way the coffee market works see also www.blackgoldmovie.com |
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