Fair Trade Coffee

We went to Romeo's Foodland at Glenelg yesterday for a bit of a 'do' to celebrate all Romeo's Foodlands stocking some new lines of fair trade coffee. Thanks to Deanna for inviting us along, giving us free coffee samples and for picking such a good position next to the freezer section on a 42 degree day!!

For anyone who hasn't heard of it, there's a pretty good explanation of fair trade here. But basically it's about ethical consumerism, and promoting training and good farming practices to help achieve sustainable business models in the countries (developing countries) where most of the world's coffee is grown. Basically we're talking choosing to pay 5c in a $3 cup of coffee to the farmer instead of 3c, with some independent auditing and accreditation to encourage proper usage of the extra money.

The best thing about it - seeing local small business owners taking the lead (hopefully - at least thats what it looks like) on promoting things like ethical consumerism, instead of taking the line of the Big Two trying to increase profits by replacing choice with Own-Brand products (which in my experience to date are rarely a good choice from any perspective bar price - although it will be interesting to see if this changes with the multi-tiered home-brand systems coming in).

The one thing that does frustrate me a little bit about the fair trade coffee thing, is that it seems impossible to get fair trade coffee that isn't organically grown. I might be wrong, but last I knew, organic farming was less productive than other ways, and I'm not convinced that just because us rich kids are willing to spend millions of dollars a year on coffee that we should be using any more land than we have to to make what is essentially a luxury item - especially since as far as I know we're pushing the limits of the productive land we have if we want to feed everyone. And I get that part of this is about encouraging sustainability, and that that is the reason some people give for choosing organic produce, but as far as I know, sustainable farming is possible without being organic, as long as we adhere to good farming practices. And I understand that that's no given when buying imported produce, but doesn't that just mean we need accreditation for good farming practice, as well as the existing accreditation for organic farming??

Anyway, I've had my rant - and that was about a 'good thing' !!! Nice work.