Fairtrade coffee

Swedish people is one of the top consumers of coffee. We consume one percent of the coffee consumption and that is 9kg per person and year. Only a small part is fairtrade qualified coffee. Coffee is the second largest goods after oil. We often import coffee from Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Guatemala and Costa Rica. It is one of the most important export goods in the developing countries. It directly affects approximately 20-25 million farmers. It guaranties the food and shelter to 100 million people.

The prices for coffee vary a great deal. Sometimes the farmers don't even get the productions cost covered. The trade road for the coffee is very long and hard to track. The profit for the farmers are very low. The work conditions are very hard and it is forbidden to join the union. If they try to improve the working conditions for themselves or others they can be stalked, abused or murded. It is very important for the coffee producers to have economical safety, because you can't eat coffee, you must sell it.

You must be in a cooperative to be fairtrade qualified. The cooperatives is driven democratically. They can help the farmers with for example transports, economical support and loans. The farmers often have long-term business contracts with the cooperatives. The cooperatives also help the farmers to avoid for example getting into the production of drugs. Some educational programs like health programs are held by the cooperatives. On the health program they teach about first aid, sex and vaccinations. It is also arranged equality between sexes courses, because the cooperatives often are man dominated. They also try to create more ways for the women to support themselves. The economical courses are very popular among women and that have given the women more influence over the farm and the economy.

Coffee was the first product to be fairtade qualified and that was in 1980. Coffee is the biggest fairtrade product. Today there is approximately 230 organisations for the coffee producers. The criterions for fairtrade coffee are for example about the use of chemicals, health caring measures, long-term trading relations, minimum prices and premies. They demand that the world market price should be over the production cost and that they should be extra paid for ecological products. The farmers decide how they want to use the premies. Although the purpose with the premies are to develop the local society. Some examples on how to use the premies are to build drug stores, high schools, toilets and laboratories for the schools.

Other examples are to buy books and uniforms for the school and invest in ecological farming.

Many things get better for the farmers if they can sell the coffee fairtrade qualified. They often increases the sell, get better production capacity and get better paid. That is an important motivation for the farmers because of the bad economy in these countries. The products is also produced with a higher quality. The farmers are often used to bad administration and that is why it is good for them to be in fairtrade. Now they can see how much they are selling their coffee for and how much profits the involved gets. The ask for fairtrade coffee in Europe is still too low so all the coffee can't be bought for the fairtrade price. In Sweden we can buy fairtrade coffee in many stores. For example on Ica, Willys and Hemköp.