| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| jema |
Fairtrade coffee calculationCheapest tescos fair trade coffee:
So £7.90 a kilo. Fair trade price to farmers: http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/03/freds-footprint-how-fair-is-fair-trade.html £3.21 a kilo. non fair trade price: £2.77 a kilo. Cheapest tesco non fair trade Columbian coffee: £10.50 a kilo. Actually more expensive than the fairtrade coffee 
The key is the 44p a kilo difference in the fair and non fair trade price to the farmers. On a 227g pack of coffee you should be expecting to pay 10p more for fair trade plus a little for overheads. If that is the extra you are paying then you are getting a good deal for everyone. Pay much more than that and you are probably making someone other than the farmers very happy. |
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| Treacodactyl |
Is it on offer in Tesco? Suma have Percol Fairtrade Columbia 8 x 250g for £20.34 wholesale, so £2.54 each, and the RRP £3.39. | ||||
| gnome |
ah - i knew it. the farmers only get slightly more from fair trade than from the "evil exploiters", but we are paying a hell of a lot more. its just more cynical exploitation, just exploiting different people. thanks for that link - a very illuminating article. | ||||
| jema |
Don't just look at the article though, look at the calculation currently. | ||||
| orangepippin |
"So you buy our coffee for $1.46, and sell it for $12. Is that fair trade? Good question."
The obvious answer to the question is "no, that's not fair trade". But think about it a bit more and the "obvious" answer starts to un-ravel. The "good african farmer vs exploiting westerner" view is too simplistic. The dealer may buy from the Kenyan farmer at $1.46 ... but he then has to pay transport costs to the UK, storage and distribution, marketing, and his own salary. Some of those costs are in "Kenyan" (=low cost) money and some are in "Western" (=high cost) money. When you take that into account the equation does not look so skewed against the Kenyan farmer at all, does it? Perhaps the question that should be asked is: how much profit % is the Kenyan farmer making and how much is the western coffee trader making - perhaps adjusted to take account of their value-added to the finished product, and their personal risk, relative to their home economy. |
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| jema |
Indeed it is complex.
My attitude therefore has been the one represented by my attempt at a calculation. e.g. working out if the "fairtrade" logo does at least mean that what you pay extra does roughly get through to the farmer. If the mark up means that a middle man is getting a big chunk extra, then you might as well buy the cheap coffee and put the difference into a decent charity. |
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| orangepippin |
Some of those middle men could be equally worthy Kenyans involved in the coffee industry there, working as sub-contractors or moving beans to central depots etc.
Certainly not easy, as a consumer, trying to use your consumer spending to reward the good supply chain, which I think is what fair trade should be about. Your point about putting the difference into a charity is, unfortunately, quite a good one! It's a shame these farmers don't setup a website where you can order online direct from them. (I'm ignoring the food miles issue for the sake of simplicity!). |
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| vegplot |
There are a growing number of shops offering FairTrade. While I like to think their attitude is one from an organisation taking the moral high ground I'm cycnical to think that it's not. I'm highly suspicious that it's soley to do with economics, a bit like Shell pulling out of the Thames off shore wind farm to re-invest in the US because the profit margins are higher. | ||||
| gnome |
i'd like to see more independant reports looking into what the farmers are getting as "fair trade" price. i don't think an extra 10p per pound of coffee is much of an improvement - and that was just one example (and supposedly a good one). we are certainly paying more than an extra 10p per pound in the shops, so somebody is definetely benefitting more than the farmer does.
percol doesn't count - i've tasted the stuff, and i wont drink it no matter how cheap it is. |
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| Jamanda |
10p a pound may well be a huge difference to the people involved even if it doesn't sound like much to us. |
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| orangepippin |
The M&S fair trade chocolate bars (100g) are priced much more competitively than the Green and Blacks organic stuff, even though the latter does not specifically say it is fair trade. This makes me think branding is affecting the price quite a bit. The Green and Blacks wrapper does say it is from sustainable plantations, although at the rate I get through them they are probably having to clear more rain-forest. | ||||
| Treacodactyl |
What's wrong with it? We find it one of the better coffees, for us anyway. |
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| Erikht |
Well, the coffee farmers will just have to unionize like everybody else. Making cartels, no less. | ||||
| gnome |
if you read the article in the link, you will see it is a small difference, not a huge difference, and the farmers don't think it is that fair. a slight difference is better than nothing, but it is still exploitation. it's like calling saddam a humanitarian because he murdered fewer people than hitler did. |
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| jema |
I think that is harsh, you cannot compare a positive step however small with the negative. | ||||
| gnome |
true - but i think that a small positive step can be more harmfull than no positive step, because it leads to complacency. is fair trade as it is now a positive step, or merely a step that is just a little bit less negative? it is good that things are changing, but we should not think that because it is changing that the situation is changed. it isn't. what gets me riled is that certain well known coffee brands are now starting to do a "fair trade" version. clearly they have no true commitment to fair trade or they would go completely fair trade - they only have a fair trade version because they see a new trend and marketting opportunity so cynically jump on the bandwagon. if the percentage markup is higher thatn the percentage extra they pay the farmer, then it is in no way fair trade.
i approve of fair trade - i would like to see it happen. for that, there must be an unbiased group who can look into the pricing system, look at the costs, look at what is being paid to farmers, and then decide whether or not it is truly fair. also, i would like to see fair trade apply to food grown here and in europe too. we hear a lot about farmers going bancrupt because supermarkets wont pay a fair price on produce. you dont have to go to south america to see exploitation. |
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| gnome |
i've had a thought. the cost of transportation isn't really a valid excuse for the price difference. the problem with getting supermarkets to pay our farmers a decent price for their produce is always met with "why should we pay you more when we can import it from abroad for far less?" one way or another someone is lying - you can't have it both ways. either importing is cheaper or it isn't.
what is needed is an internationally agreed fare trade price for all produce. then that excuse won't exist. forcing UK farmers into bancruptcy because we can get third world farmers to grow our food for a pittance, and then selling it in shops at an extortionate price is not acceptable. |