By Dave Gram
The
Associated Press
MONTPELIER, VT. - Two stalwarts in the
fair-trade coffee movement are at odds over a move by a national certifying
organization to expand beyond small, farmer-owned cooperatives and allow larger
growers to sell their product with a fair trade label.
Equal Exchange in
West Bridgewater, Mass., took out a full-page ad Sunday in The Burlington
(Vermont) Free Press calling on Waterbury-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
to sever relations with Fair Trade USA.
Equal Exchange
criticized Fair Trade USA for leaving an international umbrella group devoted
to fair trade and for inviting larger coffee plantations into the fair trade
fold.
"With this move,
they threaten to reverse decades of hard-won gains while potentially putting at
risk the very survival of the farmer cooperatives," it said.
FTUSA remains the
dominant player in the U.S. in affixing a label to products as a signal to
socially conscious consumers that the producers of coffee and other products
grown in developing countries are being paid a fair price. Farmers get a $1.40
per pound "floor price" -- a minimum maintained even if commodity
markets go lower; a 20-cents-per-pound "social premium," which pays
for communal benefits like health clinics or schools, and an extra 30 cent
premium if the coffee is organic.
FTUSA President and
CEO Paul Rice said expanding the market for fair trade products will help all
farmers. He cited the case of an estate in Brazil that recently began using the
fair trade label on coffee it sells to the Whole Foods chain for its Allegro
brand. The Fair trade coffee that carries the "social premium" of 20
cents a pound could now go both to the estate and to small farmers that also
provide coffee for Allegro.
Workers on the estate
voted to put the roughly $15,000 they earned from the premium toward eye exams
and glasses for those among their number who needed them.
"The notion that
co-ops should have exclusive access to our markets is just wrongheaded from a
marketing perspective," Rice said.
Rodney North,
spokesman for Equal Exchange, was not impressed with the Allegro example. He
argued that new sales of that brand to "committed Fair Trade
shoppers" merely would take market share away from the co-ops where their
previous coffee was coming from.
The fair trade
movement started about a quarter century ago as a way to boost the fortunes of
poor farmers in developing countries by getting them better prices for the
crops they produced. While coffee has been dominant in a market that saw $1.3
billion of fair trade product sales in the United States in 2010, the field has
grown to include cocoa, bananas and other crops.
At Green Mountain
Coffee Roasters, officials said they want to continue to support the small
farmer cooperatives that have formed the backbone of the fair trade movement to
date, as well as see whether Fair Trade USA can expand the concept to encompass
a broader swath of the coffee supply chain.
Ed
Canty, a certified coffee buyer for Green Mountain who travels extensively in
coffee producing countries, said what has worked for the farmers who belong to
cooperatives should have a similar effect of improving the lives of farmworkers
on coffee plantations.
"Why can't these
workers, who are some of the poorest of the poor, in some of these estates be
involved as well?" he asked in an interview with The Associated Press on
Monday from the company's headquarters in Waterbury.
As it announced new
policies on a pilot basis last fall, Fair Trade USA split from an international
umbrella organization, Fairtrade International. The changes prompted Equal
Exchange, which also imports chocolate, tea and bananas on a fair-trade basis,
to split from Fair Trade USA and push for other companies, including Green
Mountain, to do the same.
Equal Exchange
praised Green Mountain for its past work with the farmer cooperatives, but
questioned whether the company understood the possible ramifications of Fair
Trade USA's moves.
"We think that
they don't fully grasp how these changes by Fair Trade USA could undo the good
work that Green Mountain has been supporting," North said Monday.
North said Equal
Exchange decided to buy the newspaper ad after talks between its executives and
Green Mountain's had not produced results.
"It was clear
there was quite a gap between us and we would need to do something more
dramatic," he said.
Canty said the
similarities between the factions in the fair trade movement still outweigh the
differences, and that his biggest worry is that the rift could cause harm to
the principle of fair trade overall.
"It's really
splitting hairs. I think everybody involved in this discussion is doing
good," Canty said. "I'm hoping the consumer sees that at the end of
the day, but it's a really hard message."