Fair Trade at Tufts

Tufts University has taken strides in addressing the coffee crisis by offering Fair Trade coffee at a number of venues on campus. Both the Tower Café and the student-run Oxfam Café serve Fair Trade coffee exclusively, as does the newly revamped Hotung Café. In addition, Tufts Dining offers at least one Fair Trade option daily at each dining hall, Brown & Brew, the Campus Center Commons and Hodgdon Good To Go.

An initiative to offer Fair Trade bananas at Tufts Dining operations is currently underway.

Fair Trade

Fair Trade is a response to unfair trading practices that have jeopardized the livelihood of small-scale farmers and their employees, as well as the environment in which their products are produced. Along with handmade crafts, Fair Trade coffee, tea, cocoa, and bananas are currently available in the United States.

Fair Trade involves the following principles:

• Producers receive a fair price—a living wage. For commodities, farmers receive a stable, minimum price.
• Forced labor and exploitative child labor are not allowed.
• Buyers and producers trade under direct long-term relationships.
• Producers have access to financial and technical assistance.
• Sustainable production techniques are encouraged.
• Working conditions are healthy and safe.
• Equal employment opportunities are provided for all.
• All aspects of trade and production are open to public accountability.
  (Source: www.globalexchange.org)

How do I know whether a product is Fair Trade?
Look for products with Fair Trade Certified and Fair Trade Federation labels. Only these products are certified by the Fair Trade Labeling Organization (FLO), indicating that they adhere to the Fair Trade principles.

What does shade grown mean?
There is no standard enforceable label for shade grown coffee. Traditionally, shade grown means that farmers plant under the rain forest canopy, as opposed to planting in the full sun. Shade grown coffee is far less detrimental to the environment than sun grown, because instead of entirely cutting back the rainforest, farmers thin the natural canopy. There is actually a shade spectrum or a shade gradient, wherein coffee grower define their management practices as falling somewhere between rustic (entirely shady) or full-sun (unshaded monoculture). The full sun coffee opperations require larger amounts of pesticides and incur greater erosion and soil acidification than shade grown operations. Shade grown coffee tends to be less bitter and have lower yields than sun grown coffee. Shade grown plants can live 25-30 years, often twice as long as plants grown in the full sun. Unlike full sun monocultures, shade grown polyculture practices encourage multiple varieties of beneficial fruits, nuts and herbs. By definition, polycultures increase species diversity, helping the farmers economically during depressed years and helping the environment by stabilizing the ecosystem.

Are all Fair Trade products organic and shade-grown?
Not necessarily, nor are all organic and shade-grown products necessarily fairly traded. Eighty to eighty-five percent of Fair Trade coffee farmers do not use pesticides, but some Fair Trade products are “conventionally” grown, and these tend to be less expensive than the organic/shade-grown varieties. However, all Fair Trade products are produced with sustainable farming techniques, and the revenues from their sale are often used to educate farmers about sustainable and organic farming practices.

Can I get domestic Fair Trade products?
Fair Trade currently works exclusively with imported products. However, you can support local “fair trade” by buying sustainably grown produce directly from small-scale farmers at farmer’s markets or through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). You can also ensure a living wage for farm employees by looking for union labels on produce.

Statistics:

• Fair Trade benefits over 550,000 coffee farmers in 22 countries and 42,000 cocoa farmers in 8 countries.
• Starbucks CEO’s annual salary: $2.5 million
  Small-scale coffee farmer’s annual revenue: $300
• M&M/Mars annual revenue: $16 billion
  African cocoa farmer’s annual revenue: $30-$108
• Over 284,000 children on West African cocoa farms work on hazardous tasks.
• In 2004, non-Fair Trade banana farmers were paid 2 cents per pound of bananas, whereas Fair Trade banana farmers were paid 18 cents per pound.
• In 2001, coffee prices hit a 30-year low with farmers receiving only $0.47 per pound of beans. Fair Trade guarantees farmers a minimum price of $1.26 per pound.
• Over 8 billion pounds of bananas are sold in the U.S. every year, making them the most popular fruit in the country. That equals about 84 bananas for every American.
• Coffee is the second-most traded commodity in the world. Only oil is traded more.

Sources:

www.fairtradefederation.org
www.globalexchange.org
www.americanbirding.org