Login -

News
Press Releases
Partner Press Releases
Resources
 

Press Releases

07/18/2002

Fair Trade Certified Coffee Resolution Introduced in the House of Representatives

Oakland, CA (July 18, 2002) - TransFair USA, the only organization providing third-party certification of Fair Trade products in the US, announced today that Rep. Pete Stark has introduced a House Resolution expressing the sense of Congress that all branches of the Federal Government should limit purchases of coffee to that which is Fair Trade Certified.

The Fair Trade Certified label is a guarantee that farmers:

  • Receive a fair price for their harvest - A minimum of $1.26 per pound ($1.41 for Organic Certified)
  • Have access to credit and direct access to American markets, cutting out exploitative middlemen
  • Benefit from cooperative programs supporting social and commercial development
Currently, many coffee farmers receive as little as 20 cents per pound of coffee, well below their cost of production. The substantial difference between 20 cents and the Fair Trade price of $1.26 per pound often represents the road out of desperate poverty. It enables farmers to keep children in school, feed their families, improve healthcare and housing and invest in improving the quality of their coffee. Environmentally, an estimated 85% of Fair Trade Certified coffee in the US is also Certified Organic and most is grown under the canopy of bird-friendly shade trees, protecting wildlife habitats and the soil. Fair Trade Certified Coffee, currently sourced from 22 different countries, means quality--for coffee drinkers, farmers and the environment.

"It is only fair that the farmers that grow the beans that supply the world's booming coffee market be able to share in the profits they've rightly earned," Stark said. "Its an atrocity that so many small farmers are being ripped off by corrupt coffee brokers and forced to live in poverty."

Evidence of the urgency of the current crisis in coffee growing communities was expressed in a recent Wall Street Journal story dated July 8, 2002: "In lush coffee-growing regions from Central America to Africa, the collapse of world coffee prices is contributing to societal meltdowns affecting an estimated 125 million people, [resulting in] a combustible brew of unemployment, hunger and migration. Whole rural communities are disappearing."

Stark's Resolution states, "In the context of the global economy, consumer choices affect communities and the environment throughout the world." Based on the 2001 National Coffee Association study, American coffee drinkers have the largest opportunity to effect these changes. It shows that 80% of adults in the US drink coffee, making us the world's largest coffee consuming nation. Our country drinks an estimated 20% of the world's coffee--more than half of this is grown by small family farmers in the tropical regions of Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

"Fair Trade Certification is a market-based solution, allowing coffee drinkers to effect change on critical global issues such as immigration, starvation, drug trade and the environment. An act as simple as buying an equally priced coffee from any of 10,000 retail locations, gives hundreds of thousands of farming families the critical resources they need to bootstrap their way out of poverty," says Kenya Lewis of TransFair USA.

Stark concludes, "If America truly wishes to be a protector of freedom and human rights around the globe, we cannot turn a blind eye to the greed that is denying economic opportunity to millions of poor farmers. It is time we stood up for our values and put corrupt coffee suppliers out of business. I hope passage of this resolution will be one small step in that direction."

TransFair USA, a non-profit 501c organization is the only Fair Trade certification organization in the U.S. Since it was founded in 1998, TransFair has developed partnerships with 132 coffee companies, including Peet's, Starbucks and Tully's and launched Fair Trade coffee into 10,000 retail outlets nationwide including Safeway, Trader Joe's and Border's Books. In the past three years, TransFair has certified over 13 million lbs. of Fair Trade coffee, and generated more than $10 million in additional income for small coffee farmers. TransFair has already added tea to its certifiable commodities and will launch Fair Trade cocoa in the Fall of 2002. Visit our image gallery for downloadable images.

This page last updated: November 1, 2005
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Photo Credits | Copyright © 2004 TransFair USA
Site by: Bandar Interactive