Analysis Of Hayden Farr. Trader Joe 's Organic Sumatra Coffee Commodity Chain

I researched Metropolis Coffee Company and the sourcing process that their beans took to get into their shop. In this case, the coffee beans were sourced from countries across South America and Africa. This exercise displayed how we directly influence other people in society through our consumerism. More so, this exercise raises concern to the issues surrounding low wages towards the workers of these food products as well as harsh work conditions they are exposed to. If we were aware of our consumer influence for supporting ethical companies, we could effectively work to support companies whose product comes from an ethical means of

Coffee is not just a drink. It’s a global commodity. Multinational coffee companies now dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. While we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields. This conundrum is most evident in no place other than Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee.

There are 226 fairtrade certified producer organizations in 74 countries. Moreover, small producer organizations spent 31% of their fairtrade premium on investments supporting productivity or quality of improvements and on plantations, workers spent 26% of their fairtrade premium on education. So Fair Trade starts the path for many other advancements. Some examples of products that are Fair Trade Certified are Stacy’s Pita Chips, Brownie Brittle, and the Whole Foods Market grocery store. There are many Fair Trade Certified companies all over the world, a handful of which include Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Fair Indigo, Fairhills Wine, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Theo Chocolate. Blends for Life, and Rishi Tea. All of these products are sold in local grocery stores and food markets. In order to incorporate these products into our daily life we have to make objective decisions and research the specific foods, and products we are buying everyday. By taking the time to find specific products that are Fair Trade Certified we not only benefit the worker we also benefit the environment and ourselves by supporting a morally conscious

The United States consumes “2.8 billion pounds of chocolate each year, or over 11 pounds per person. Americans eat an average of 22 pounds of candy each year”(The Chocolate Store). Because the United States consumes an exuberant amount of chocolate, the nation poses an insurmountable influence on the processes of the chocolate industry. Fair Trade strives to ensure the safety of workers in the chocolate industry, allow workers to make liveable profits and most importantly, This corporation ensures that no child labor was used in the process of harvesting the cocoa. Not only does Fair Trade aid in helping cocoa farmers achieve a higher quality of life, but the majority of Fair Trade efforts improve education for children while keeping them out of the plantations and in the classroom. Fair Trade premiums provide money to families who desperately need birth certificates for their children because “if a family does not obtain a birth certificate within the child’s first few months of life, it can be very expensive and burdensome to obtain one” and many schools require birth certificates to enroll (Huffington Post). Fair Trade premiums also allow for more schools to be built in areas abundant with cocoa plantations (Huffington Post). Even though Fair Trade certified chocolate is more expensive than uncertified products, basic human rights have no dollar amount. The extra money paid for Fair Trade certified chocolate goes to aiding children in breaking free from a cycle poverty, which would otherwise be endless. The few more coins spent on Fair Trade chocolate provides hope to those bound in slavery to the world’s

In “Free Trade, Fair Trade, and Coffee Farmers in Ethiopia,” written by Daniel Lee and Elizabeth Lee, they discuss the hardships that Ethiopian coffee farmers face. Ethiopia, being one of the poorest countries in the world, depends heavily on their production of coffee. With a population of 78 million, over 15 million participate in the world coffee production. Despite Ethiopian coffee being labeled as one of the best in the world, there is no substantial protection for farmers when the price of coffee

Coffee is estimated to be a $20 billion industry, its impacts reaching almost every corner of the earth. As coffee spread around the world and demand for the bean grew, an industry popped up that led to current day unethical and unsustainable practices surrounding the production and marketing of the bean. Vast consumption of coffee is what continues the drive to cultivate and produce the drink. The production of coffee affects the environmental ethics of many communities, but through changing the markets and commodities surrounding coffee, negative impacts of its production have turned around drastically.

The explanation for fair trade,” refers to the movement to improve the lives of growers and other producers through trade.” http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_problem_with_fair_trade_coffee

Coffee is the second most globally traded commodity second only to oil therefore the market is extremely large. This leads to a huge coffee farming industry. In recent years, there has been a large push for awareness of the process a product undergoes to get to the consumer. My family and I sincerely enjoy freshly roasted coffee. My mother and father were recently in Panama and decided to purchase a coffee farm with the goal of creating a sustainable retirement home for themselves in the future. They also became aware of the issues surrounding the workers who live and work on the farms in the area and decided that one of their goals would be to provide fair housing and pay for the workers on their farm. I was inspired

Following Meskela’s journey, the film demonstrates the power held by multinational corporations (MNCs) in setting the price of coffee. He wants a solution, but what happens with commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), he is faced with challenges in finding that. Meskela worked diligently to eliminate the players who tend to come in between the buyers and the sellers. Instead, he went directly to the buyers to ask for a fair price. The fair-trade movement embraced his cause as they work to bring supposedly fairly-traded commodities to grocery stores in America.

Lets take for example the coffee that we see on the store shelves in the United States that are grown in Colombia. After the coffee is produced and packaged

The Fairtrade movement is designed and implemented to make sure that rural coffee farmers are receiving excellent work standards and adopting a larger percentage of profit rather than the west or developed states receiving the economic benefits. The Fairtrade movement is a positive movement that has good intentions and is helping rural coffee farmers on a smaller scale globally. Although the movement does not help certain countries it is helping the poorer states and protecting them with labour laws and enforcements, one of the biggest advantage’s is that Fairtrade also looks at the community development and reducing poverty by making sure that coffee farmers are still being paid throughout the year, these advantages are a helpful way of overcoming production difficulties.

Many Canadians start their day with a cup of coffee, taking for granted how the coffee bean was grown, harvested, packaged and shipped to their coffee provider to then roast and prepare for us to purchase for as little as $1.50 per cup. Today coffee is the most important product in the Fair Trade market affecting over five hundred thousand producers and workers. The Fair Trade label can be traced back to 1988 originating from a church based Non Governmental Organization (NGO) from the Netherlands that began an initiative to ensure coffee growers and pickers would receive sufficient wages for their work. The NGO created the fair trade label called Max Havelaar. Following this, similar organizations followed

In the last few years, Peruvian coffee has been gaining more and more awareness worldwide, due to its flavor and high quality. As a result, it has received several awards. To illustrate, El Tunki, El Quechua, and El Sol & Café -types of Peruvian coffee- were awarded the second, fifth, and ninth place, respectively, in the Rainforest Alliance of Cupping Quality contest in 2013. Furthermore, El Tunki was recognized as “The Best Special Coffee of the World” by the Specialty Coffee Association of America in 2010 (Cafe Tunki, 2012). Due to these, it was commonly thought that these coffee grains were immensely exported; however, the reality was the opposite. The exportation rates were considerably lower than other countries with comparable crops, such as the Vietnamese or Colombians. This can be evidence as Peru exported 3.7 million coffee bags (60kg. each), while the other countries exported 19 and 7.5 million bags, respectively (USDA,2011).

According to the Cambridge Dictionary (2014), fairtrade is ‘ a way of selling or buying a product that makes certain that the people who produce the goods receive a fair trade’. Coffee producers’ products are not necessarily produced to organic standards (Global fairtrade, 2010). Nowadays, coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world. Eighty-percent of the coffee products in the world market are made by twenty-five million small holders (fairtrade, 2012). Around one hundred and twenty five million people worldwide depend on coffee for their livelihood. There are seven million and nine hundred thousand tonnes of coffee produced per year and six million and two hundred thousand of these are for import (fairtrade, 2014).

The idea of standards-based certification and labeling of foods, such as coffee, emerged in the 1980s. Unlike the commodity coffee chain, the standards-based Fair Trade value chain eliminated several middle layers, including the local buyer, miller, exporter, shipper, and importer and allowed farmers to deal directly with wholesalers. “Free trade” means unrestricted, uncontrolled access to our economy, tariff- and duty-free, for goods made for $4-per-hour or less. (Barlow, G. 2014).