We've been discussing Fair Trade lately – its pros and cons, and how we at the Rogers Family Company are doing more. There was a recent article in Time Magazine about the effectiveness of Fair Trade, and we also learned that Green Mountain Coffee was holding a "Be Fair" campaign - but are only "28%" fair!
First - Green Mountain. Last month, they held a daily quiz as part of their "Be Fair" campaign, and one of the questions last week was what percentage of Green Mountain sales are Fair Trade? The answer is 28% - we don't think that's very much for a company running a “Be Fair” campaign.
But at the same time, a recent Time Magazine article pointed out that Fair Trade Certified coffee hasn’t really been helping small farmers – in fact many are still going hungry for many months of the year.
The problem that big roasters like Green Mountain, Starbucks - and even us here at the Rogers Family Company- face is that we cannot buy all our coffee from small farmer cooperatives - a requirement for fair trade certification. In order to meet our very large demand for consistently high-quality coffee beans, we also need to buy coffee from large coffee farms. (Such consistency of quality is hard to achieve when buying from so many small farmers with just 1 or 2 acres per farmer.) So Green Mountain and Starbucks buy a small percentage of coffee from fair trade certified cooperatives, buy the larger percentage from large farms, and then wrap themselves in the Fair Trade banner.
But here at the Rogers Family, we take a different approach which we feel is far better than strictly "fair trade certified." We buy our coffee directly from large and small farms - including farmer coops - that meet our stringent standards for quality, compassion for workers, and environmental stewardship. We visit the farms personally, set up long-term contracts and develop long- term relationships with these farmers and coops. We always pay above their costs of production - plus a profit - which is a much higher price than Fair Trade. In fact current average price we pay is $1.55 for non organic and $1.87 for organic: far more than the $1.31/$1.55 price required for Fair Trade certification.
But we do even more. Through our Community Aid Program, we strive to break the cycle of poverty that exists in coffee communities by spending upwards of $1 million ~ every year ~ improving the education, housing, health, and sanitary conditions for workers and their families on every farm with which we do business - whether it's a huge plantation, a small farm, or a coop of small farmers.
Our Community Aid program benefits all coffee families who come into contact with our company - whether they have a small plot of land or have no land at all. You see, the many, large communities of landless farm-workers that have settled around large coffee farms do not even benefit from the Fair Trade scheme since they do not own land. These workers and their families often live in dire poverty. Our program fills a void for these landless farm-workers that Fair Trade cannot address.
Finally, we provide agricultural assistance to all the farmers we work with to 1) improve crop quality and 2) convert to shade and organic farming in order to ensure the beans are sustainable, delicious, and worth the higher prices we pay. Not only does this make coffee taste delicious, but it improves the environment – including the water supply - for the people & fauna there in those coffee communities.
Coffee farming communities need help in so many ways other than just a slightly higher price, and our Community Aid Program – with direct investments to break the cycle of poverty, as well as consulting to improve agricultural quality in all our partner farming communities – is doing just that. We are proud to say that 100% of our coffee is directly and ethically traded. Because we have our boots on the ground visiting every farm where we buy coffee, we know that every dollar that goes to our partner coffee farms is making a real difference to lift farmers, workers, and their families out of poverty.
Our green coffee buyer, Pete Rogers, wanted to pass on these thoughts: "The reality is without you, our customers, we could never accomplish any of this. You are making the decision to buy this coffee, and through that you are supporting these programs and breaking the cycle of poverty. You need to understand the success and help us celebrate since without you the ‘we’ has no power, no success and few changes. So on behalf of the thousands of people in coffee communities world wide...Thank you!"
