As readers of this blog will know, recently we decided to get involved in a Fair Trade for All pilot project in Colombia, in part because we want to understand and document the impacts of Fair Trade on independent smallholder farmers. As part of our effort to design a strong impact assessment, I have been […]
It is turning out to be a Green Mountain week. On Monday, I published this guest post by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Fair Trade coffee buyer Ed Canty on the company’s approach to the Fair Trade for All pilots with independent smallholder farmers and estates. And today, the Burlington Free Press — the Green Mountain […]
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters became the world’s largest Fair Trade coffee buyer in 2010, when it purchased over 26 million pounds of Fair Trade Certified coffee. The person responsible for all those purchases is Ed Canty, the company’s certified coffee buyer. But Ed isn’t only in charge of Fair Trade coffee buying for GMCR. He […]
Fair Trade USA has dramatically expanded the reach and aggregate impact of Fair Trade by aligning certification requirements more closely with conventional market logic and conventional sourcing practices. In the process, it has reduced the average impact of Fair Trade at the individual level. This is the mainstreaming paradox, and a source of discontent among […]
The manager of a Fair Trade coffee cooperative in Central America told me recently that Fair Trade USA’s decision to make estates and independent smallholder farmers eligible for Fair Trade Certification is creating another version of Fair Trade — one that has very little to do with his idea of what Fair Trade is all […]
This blog has been dominated in recent days by discussion of our involvement with one Fair Trade for All pilot project in Colombia. But the FT4All pilot is just one of countless new ideas CRS field-tests each year in its work around the world.
Today the 5 de junio cooperative celebrates a birthday. The coop, comprised of some 500 determined farmers in the rugged Nicaraguan highland town of Las Sabanas, was a CRS partner under the CAFE Livelihoods project. Counter Culture is helping to mark the occasion by telling the 5 de junio story and making 5 de junio’s […]
Last week we announced here that we are getting involved in a Fair Trade for All pilot project with independent smallholder farmers in Nariño, Colombia. Since then the suggestion has been made, both online and off, that our involvement in the project constitutes an endorsement of the overarching vision behind FT4All. Today we set the […]
On Tuesday, I announced here our involvement in an FT4All innovation pilot with independent smallholder farmers in Nariño, Colombia. Yesterday, I explained here how our involvement came to pass. Today, I discuss why Nariño might be the best imaginable place in the world for this pilot. And why it might be the worst.
Yesterday we announced here that we are getting involved in an FT4All pilot project with independent smallholder farmers in Colombia. Today we explain how it came to pass.
