humaneitarian | kindtrade

Sometime in the past year, I became a coffee person. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I knew that something had changed once I started having opinions about my cuppa joe. Not just “good coffee, bad coffee” opinions either. Nowadays, I can be in the mood for a Kenyan roast, or I can sense that only a Southern Pecan will do the trick.

Coffee beans up close shot

I know this isn’t really big news. After all, I’m not alone. 2.3 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day. Furthermore, in the United States, the average adult drinks a little over 3 cups of coffee a day. If the numbers on EcoNews are to be believed, if you drink two cups of coffee a day, it requires 18 fully-mature coffee trees to feed your habit.

There is also the oft-repeated claim that coffee is the most valuable commodity, second only to oil. Although this statement appears to be a myth, the comparison between oil and coffee is apt. The world runs on oil for everything from transportation to plastic. And plenty of us run on coffee. I run on coffee when I hit that afternoon slump. Almost 15 million Ethiopian growers, harvesters, processors, and transporters run on coffee for their livelihoods. An estimated 75 million people around the world depend on coffee for most or all of their living. Simply put, coffee is produced in the developing world and consumed in the developed world. It is startling how much is involved in each step of the way from the coffee bean to the coffee cup.

It is even more startling to me that so many people’s lives are completely consumed with making my machine whir every morning and filling my cup. Of course, in an increasingly globalized world, this level of specialization isn’t surprising. Nor am I implying that it’s wrong. It’s just worth thinking about it. And, since, I started drinking more coffee— for better or worse— I also started wondering about Fair Trade. Fair Trade promises that “your rich cup of Fair Trade coffee can help farmers escape poverty.” Fair Trade pays coffee producers with a “fair trade” price for their product as long as they meet certain environmental, labor, and production standards. Although Fair Trade is well-meaning, the system falls short of its goals. The problems are:

Overregulation. Fair Trade has an extensive list of certification requirements—ranging from farm size to contractual transparency and daily record keeping to the requirement that farmers belong to a democratic growing cooperative. These regulations put too high a burden on farmers.

Fair Trade helps only middle-income farmers. Only small-holder farmers can be certified as Fair Trade. The majority of coffee industry workers do not own land, but are hired by farmers. A recent study of Fair Trade laborers in Ethiopia and Uganda actually found that people hired to work on farms that sold fair trade products were paid less and treated worse. On the other end of the spectrum, large-holder farmers cannot be certified as Fair Trade either. Why shouldn’t large growers that treat their workers well, generating stable employment for a community be able to be listed as Fair Trade?

I think buying FairTrade is better than not paying attention to the source of your coffee. At the very least, FairTrade sends a message to companies that consumers care about supporting farmers’ livelihood. But there are better ways to buy coffee. In next Monday’s post, I’ve outlined some alternative solutions that provide more bang for your caffeinated buck than FairTrade. Check back here to read more.

(note: this is a revived post from an old blog of mine- podoflogs)

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I recently came across an article in Scientific American by Chef Bun Lai, which promoted the benefits of eating invasive species. The article described dishes with Asian shore crab, lion fish, and other invasive species in mouth watering detail. People have been eating these unwanted pests since at least the 1980’s as a means of control. Why wouldn’t they? It’s food you don’t have to grow, and it’s stuff you don’t really want in your backyard. Invasive species cost the U.S. $120 billion every year in herbicides, pesticides, and the like.

Lionfish, an invasive species on the Florida coast since the 1980s

Despite the longevity, this was a new idea to me. As I searched online, I found a multitude of initiatives to eat invasive species and about as many articles discussing the negative impacts of these campaigns. Developing a market for invasive species can provide incentives to keep these species in the area and spread them to new areas. An invasive species, as in the case of the wild boar in Hawaii, can also become a cultural icon if it becomes ingrained in the regional cuisine. Additionally, invasive species have no natural predators and have high reproductive rates. Promoting the idea that eating invasive species is a solution can also lead people to believe that eating invasive species is all that is needed to take care of a species.

After reading these articles, I am still a fan of eating invasive species, but I think we need to be careful how we market them. “Eat ‘em to beat ‘em” is catchy (…and it rhymes), but most species cannot be contained by eating them alone. Instead of propagating the idea that we can eat an invasive species out of existence, we need to focus on the fact that every calorie we consume of an invasive species is a calorie that benefits our local ecosystem instead of harming it.

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Tag Archives: humaneitarian

Quite Caffeinated: Round 1. Fair Trade Falls Flat

Invasive Species: Eat ‘em to beat ‘em? Or…?

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