Fair trade

"Certifications can be confusing and it's not always clear what each of them means. Here's a closer look into how these programs are designed to help farmers."
When buying coffee, whether at a grocery store, a local roastery, or online, you will often come across various stickers, labels and certifications that can be confusing. The three most common certifications that coffee roasters use to market their coffee are Fair Trade, USDA Organic, and Direct Trade. Even though you may be familiar with the label, you may not always know what it means or how it affects the coffee. Below, we put together a guide on how to distinguish what each label means and how it can impact your purchasing habits.

FAIR TRADE

Fair Trade USA is an organization whose mission is to improve the lives of producers. Fair Trade has established criteria for certifying that farmers are fairly compensated for their product and that ethical employment practices are upheld. Fair Trade acts as a safety net for producers when the market price drops below the cost of production, so that producers are financially protected. Fair Trade has also created standards for ensuring health, safety, fair wages, and adequate housing for workers.

While Fair Trade International does work hard to better the lives of farm owners and their employees, they leave something to be desired. Since many farmers rely on the commodity market to determine the price of their coffee and often times make barely enough to support their families, it can be incredibly expensive for the farmer to invest what little money they have in attaining this certification in the first place.

Also, Fair Trade's standards completely disregard the quality of coffee. This means that they create a standard safety-net pricing for coffee based solely on production, and disregard the quality of coffee when determining the price of coffee. This means that there is no incentive for farmers to improve the quality of their coffee and if they do, they can often times get much higher prices for their high quality coffee outside of the Fair Trade system.

Overall, while Fair Trade's mission does indeed add value and benefits for producers, it still has room for improvement.

USDA CERTIFIED ORGANIC

This is an United States Department of Agriculture certification program that indicates that an agricultural product has been produced through approved methods that integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical processes that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity. These standards maintain that synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation, and genetic engineering may not be used.

These standards are designed to ensure that coffee is being farmed in sustainable methods to maintain and improve the environment coffee is grown in. However, this certification can be expensive for farmers to pay for. Often times, coffee is being produced "organically" because the farmers don't have the money to buy pesticides or synthetic fertilizers in the first place, let alone pay for the certification. Similarly to Fair Trade, while these standards are designed to benefit farmers and the environment, they ultimately fail to take quality into account.

DIRECT TRADE

Ideally, the Direct Trade model is designed to directly benefit the farmers. By definition, direct trade is a relationship-centered trade system between farmers and roasters. This relationship encourages roasters to pay higher prices to farmers without any middlemen taking a portion of the profit, which can help a farm invest in itself to improve the quality of coffee they produce as well as the livelihood of those who own and work it. It also encourages roasters to develop real, lasting relationships with the farmers.

While Direct Trade can be a great thing for farmers, the system still has its own flaws. The term "Direct Trade" is not universal, and every company determines their own standards for what Direct Trade means. To some, it means that they regularly (usually once or twice a year) visit a farm with which they have established a long term relationship and work to improve coffee quality and the farmers' livelihoods. To some, it means that they didn't use an importer when sourcing the coffee. And some roasters simply market their coffee as Direct Trade, without doing anything different. It's important to do research on what a company's standards are when defining Direct Trade. Often times, reliable, honest and transparent roasters have published their requirements for what determines Direct Trade coffees.

All of these certifications certainly have merits and are well intended, but when you check out at the counter, make sure to be aware of what you are paying for and how it really affects the farmer.