Some Interesting Facts and questions about Fair trade gourmet coffee: 1. The targeted gourmet coffee farmer who needs fair trade owns a farm less than 10 acres; his family runs and works the farm, they live in a third world country or remotely up in the mountains of a central America country like Brazil. They get about $.65 cents per pound without fair trade and make less than $10,000 annually. They desperately need fair trade to get out of their poverty. 2. Without phones, newspapers, television, telephones, cell phones, and in most cases running water and electricity - how does this farmer even know about " Fair Trade" in the first place? 3. With no savings; no banks; no loans; and no finances how does this farmer pay the fees to get certified fair trade? 4. How much advertising does Fair Trade do out side the US? Zero! If they did where and which media would they use? 5. Interesting most of the Fair Trade Coffee Companies in foreign lands are owned by Americans or large co-ops partially owned and funded by Americans. 6. Fair Trade doubles the price of coffee the farmer recieves but does nothing to ensure the laborers who work the farm receive any more money. Hence all the large farms owned by Americans but worked by locals help the Americans get much richer but do nothing for the local coffee workers. 7. Fair Trade does not do anything to ensure the coffee is any better or better quality - it only ensures that the price is higher. 8. Fair Trade is not recognized in China or Russia or Japan or any of the coffee countries. 9. Fair Trade has helped many Americans feel much better about themselves. 10. It has done very little to help the farmers who need it the most. In summary Fair Trade makes us Americans feel good about ourselves; helps us pay higher prices for poorer coffee; helps the big and rich farmers get richer. It does nothing to help the pheasant farmer we dream it is helping. And it gives us a false marketing ploy that Fair Trade is actually a better quality coffee i=when in fact it only means its a more expensive gourmet coffee. And really it gives us a false sense of self worth and that we are helping poor farmers when we are not.It causes us to pay too much for bad coffee and to think Fair Trade has anything to do with "quality" when it doesn't. It doesn't do anything to help the labor pool who work on the coffee farms nor stop children from working on coffee farms. But it has raised up the price of coffee and our awareness. Only if it could be more truthful and helpful
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