Fighting global poverty

Second Place

Editorial/Column

Division 2

Fighting global poverty

Jeremy Keim-Shenk

Grade 12

Hi-Lite

Manheim Township Hs

Adviser: Marty Plieger

Every morning, dozens of students arrive to school with a hot cup of coffee in hand, hoping to be infused with a bit energy to get the day started.

Yet I wonder how many people consider where their coffee comes from. Sure, it may have been brought at some coffee shop or brewed at home after being bought at the grocery store, but where were the beans grown? Who cultivated and picked the coffee plants?

Most of the world’s coffee comes from so-called “developing” nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The beans are picked and then generally sold to a variety of intermediate buyers and coffee companies before finally reaching the coffee shops and grocery stores where we purchase them.

Although coffee is a highly lucrative product in commercial trade, the farm workers who begin the entire process rarely share in the huge profits. Globalization and unrestricted capitalism have allowed large international corporations to swindle farmers both by paying unreasonably low prices and by flooding local markets with cheap foreign goods that undermines those grown or made locally.

Many small farmers, therefore, do not receive enough profit to pay for production expenses and often fall into debt that they are incapable of escaping. They have few real alternatives to agriculture since they generally lack the skills, knowledge and resources necessary to adopt different livelihoods.

Free trade, in which few if any tariffs and other restrictions exist, has intensified unequal distributions of wealth between rich and poor people, as well as nations.

It has failed to dramatically reduce world poverty, as many proponents predicted. Approximately 1.3 billion people (about one-fifth of the world’s population) still live on less than one dollar a day, according to the World Bank.

An alternative to free trade, commonly known as fair trade, has been gaining strength over the past several years. The movement focuses on the rights and needs of poor farmers who are often held in an acute state of poverty by the practices of multi-national corporations. The principal aim of fair trade is to pay farmers fair prices with which they can realistically make a living. It is not limited to coffee, as fair trade chocolate, tea, fruit, clothing, crafts and other products can also be purchased. TransFair USA, a nonprofit organization, plays a leafing role in fair trade efforts in the USA by certifying products that pass their fair trade standards.

This certification guarantees that products are bought from farmers or farming cooperatives for fair prices (for coffee, the minimum is currently $1.31/lb, except in South America, where it is $1.29/lb), that workers have the freedom to unionize and that no child labor was used, among other standards. By buying directly from the farmers instead of going through numerous intermediaries, fair trade businesses are able to pay farmers better prices with which the farmers can reasonably make a living.

Furthermore, TransFair encourages environmental-friendly production by not allowing the use of GMOs and dangerous agrochemicals and by promoting green practices like shade-growing coffee.

In 2006, fair trade sales increased by 41% worldwide, according to Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International, but many businesses continue to ignore the growing movement. Starbucks, that omni-present coffee corporation that loves to boast about being socially responsible and globally aware, has become the largest buyer of fair trade coffee in the United States, yet still only six percent of their coffee is Fair Trade Certified™ according to the Toronto Star.

In Lancaster County, the only TransFaid USA licensed are Gerhart Coffee and Square One Coffee, though other businesses sell certified products.

As inhabitants of the world’s largest coffee-importing nation in the world, the people of the United States have an obligation to understand the effects that their purchases of coffee (and other products) have on the people who grow and assemble these goods. By demanding fair trade products be sold in our local stores and eateries, we can make a genuine contribution to the global fight against poverty.