Poor Farmer

Think that organic, fair trade coffee is the best for the environment? Well, it is, sometimes. THE GIST ·          Coffee farms can benefit areas by becoming a habitat for wildlife. ·          Even an organic farm can contaminate waterways if the runoff from coffee de-pulping operations isn't contained. ·          Carbon-free coffee is a relatively new addition to the line-up of ethical coffee choices. By   Tim Wall   Discovery News  March 2, 2012 The coffee industry, from the farm to the mug, is percolating with change. While prices remain high, helping farmers, according to Judith Ganes-Chase, President of J. Ganes Consulting, a commodities advising company, demand is actually slowing. But not so for organic and fair trade coffee. Interest in that growing, which holds implications for the environment. Organic, shade-grown, fair tr...

By David McFadden Associated Press March 2, 2012 BRANDON HILL, Jamaica (AP) — A few years ago in this mist-shrouded mountain town, steep slopes were quilted with some of the world's most valuable coffee trees. Farmers scrambled to increase acreage and pickers painstakingly filled wooden boxes with ripened berries at harvest time. Today, much of the terrain is overgrown with underbrush and bamboo as a declining luxury market in Japan and a voracious beetle drive thousands of frustrated small farmers away from tiny plots of leased highlands. Times are hard for the growers of Jamaica's legendary coffee, especially those on isolated, low-tech farms such as the ones in Brandon Hill, a one-road enclave with no traffic lights. "We used to make a living, but now we're working hungry," said Colin McLaren, standing in his sloping farm of flowering coffee trees in Jamaica's wild eastern mountains, where his father grew the gourmet arabica beans bef...