Fair trade brew: Canadian consumers buy alternative commodities, bolster Third World economies

Catholic New Times, Sept 26, 2004 by Kevin Spurgaitis

Whether it's Full City Mexican, Dark Roast Sumatran or Chatty Matty, 'fair trade'-certified, organically cultivated coffee is pouring into the Canadian marketplace.

More alternative trading organizations (ATOs) are scooping up the natural-tasting, politically correct brew--as co-operative fair trade in coffee and other commodities continues to burgeon between Third World producers and North American distributors.

Free trade problems require a fair trade solution, says Peter Cameron, a member and owner of Planet Bean Coffee, a small-scale co-operative based in Guelph, Ont. The executive director of the Ontario Worker Co-op Federation, Cameron has helped set up worker co-operatives in Canada for more than 10 years. In 1986, he handpicked beans before sunup in one of Nicaragua's lush plantations, a part of the country's coffee brigade. There, he worked among more than 3,000 peasant farmers--former servants of absentee landlords, retailers, roasters, exporters, processors, taxing agencies, creditors, and a cast of 'coyote middlemen.'

"We strongly believe in justice for people in the developing countries as well as people in the North. Fair trade is about trying to create fairer economics. There's no such thing as free trade--that's a myth, a misnomer," says Cameron. "We feel strongly about working with our customers by educating them through promotional material and speaking events."

Since 2002, Planet Bean has peddled fair trade tea, chocolate and sugar in Ontario and Manitoba. With only seven full-time staff and four worker-owners, the "vibrant operation" in downtown Guelph, acts as a production facility and warehouse, as well as a walk-in retail outlet. It does business in developing countries with a very limited investment budget. Nonetheless, its customers know their flavourful cup of java is fairly purchased from co-op growers abroad. It is ecologically grown--in the shade of tropical forests and away from harmful chemicals--and cooperatively produced, which fosters job creation and democracy, according to Cameron.

He says: "Free Trade is actually undermining the independence and diversity of developing economies. They should no longer be locked into a cash-crop export economy."

Alternative trade has to be present here, as well as in the South. True fair trade allows the expansion and diversification of their economy to suit their needs, not the North's. This will lead to their self-sufficiency and self-determination."

Dorothy Galon, a member of the Social Justice Committee at Guelph's Holy Rosary Parish, has helped sell 20 pounds of Planet Bean coffee every Sunday since November, 2003.

"It's a simple way of getting people alerted--to be your brother's keeper," says Galon. "Our goal is to increase the amount of fair trade in the marketplace. We can do this in such a small way, simply by switching to fair trade products."

Described as "sweatshops in the fields," coffee plantations in the South are hardly cash-crop terra firma. The commodity's prices plummeted in the last ten years (a 60-year-low between 60 cents and 70 cents US per pound), although commercial companies sustained retail prices (an average of $10 per pound) in a caffeine-hankering market. In countries like Mexico, where the beans have been a major export for hundreds of years, the majority of small-scale farmers earn a "pittance" from the labour-intensive crop. Fair trade groups say most farmers continue to live in a state of "acute poverty"--their basic needs of food, housing and health narrowly being met.

However, cooperatives like Planet Bean Coffee are bucking for change. Doing business with them translates into more Third World children receiving medical care and education. ATO's pay premium prices for farmers' crops. Sometimes, farmers are paid up to twice what they receive on the open market. Dubbing themselves as socially and environmentally responsible, such enterprises conduct an alternative form of trade which, they say, has the power to "revolutionize the global economy."

Co-operatives are jointly owned, democratically controlled enterprises--big boosters of equality, equity and solidarity. Worldwide, co-ops employ about 100 million people, according to the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), the premier organization of the international co-operative movement. And an estimated 725 million people are indirectly involved in co-ops as consumers, workers or residents. In Canada. 40 per cent of the population are members of at least one co-op, in one way or another. Although there are 7,800 co-operative businesses in Canada both large and small, they are not found on any stock market or mutual fund prospectus.

Originating in Babylon as early as 3,000 BCE, cooperative social structures were well entrenched in Africa, Asia and Latin America by the 1800s. Whether it's the fisher folk of the South Pacific islands or the cost-effective trawlers and factory ships from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, co-ops are surprisingly widespread, extending into credit unions, day care and even travel agencies, says Cameron.