Friday, May 24, 2002


ok, the last serious topic for this week; i promise all this holiday weekend will be brownies and pizza. . .

the international coffee organization wrapped up its most recent meeting in london on what seems to me to be a down note. . .

however, the members finally seem to realize that they have to act in a serious way to encourage consumption, and improve coffee quality. i have to say that i was a tad depressed to discover that in the last 2 years, according to the organization, when coffee prices hit their lowest, that 500,000 coffee workers in mexico and central america alone have lost their jobs. and there's no doubt that these people are crossing borders, as i noted yesterday.

worldwide, 25 million families have been thrown from borderline working poverty into absolute poverty. (think of this as if the entire state of texas had been thrown out of work, and then add another 5 million.) as you can see, dear readers, i am not grousing about some small problem far away. coffee is the world's second-most traded commodity, after oil, and it has tremendous impact on the entire global economic and social situation.

the double whammy here was the fact, from colombia's finance minister juan manuel santos, that of the $3 he paid for a fancy cup of indonesian coffee in downtown london, only 1 cent of that actually was passed back to the coffee farmer. 1 cent.

finally, i've talked before about how new techniques, like promoting the winners of cupping competitions, might help boost farmers' profits and encourage quality coffee. unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be a sure-fire thing. the auction prices from the highest cupping coffees in this week's regional contest for costa rican coffees didn't seem to boost the prices as much as might be hoped. . .

dear readers, what can we do? it would be pointless to sit here and just be bummed out. you can, in your own small way, improve the lot of a few coffee farmers by buying fair-trade coffees from your favorite local roaster. fair-trade coffees are even sold at starbucks and peets, as well as other major coffee chains. while this clearly is just a small gesture, it does help a few people. which is better than doing nothing, while trade organizations and development agencies work with affected governments to create more effective programs to aid coffee farmers and workers on a more widespread basis.

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