Today the CRS Coffeelands Blog celebrates the second anniversary of its inaugural post back on 9 November 2009. The blog has managed to turn our experience in CAFE Livelihoods and other projects at origin into more than 200 original posts over the past two years — posts that have generated thoughtful discussion among leading figures […]
Just over a month ago, Fair Trade USA CEO Paul Rice sat down for a few hours with CRS staff to make the case for Fair Trade for All, the controversial initiative that is re-writing the rules for Fair Trade Certified coffee in the United States. I published the notes of that discussion here, and […]
Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista government in Nicaragua may get mixed reviews these days from voters on its commitment to democracy. But during the 1970s, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua was a romantic crusade against dictatorship that united diverse elements of Nicarguan society and served as a beacon to many young people around the world. During the […]
Merling Preza is the general manager of PRODECOOP, a pioneering Fair Trade organization in Nicaragua that she helped to create in 1993, along with Fair Trade USA CEO Paul Rice. In that role she leads 2,300 smallholder farmers in their efforts to forge deeper trading relationships and foster the development of their communities. She is […]
(NB: An updated version of this summary, including links to new content, was published on 10 November 2011.) A few weeks ago I was pulled into a meeting with Paul Rice from Fair Trade USA that sent this blog swerving off its normal path and into a collision course with controversy. For the past month […]
In 1962, President Kennedy gathered Nobel laureates from across the Western Hemisphere at his residence in Washington. He welcomed them by saying that the White House had never had before seen such a gathering of intellect, with the possible exception of the evenings when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. Bill Fishbein may be no Thomas Jefferson, […]
Bill Fishbein, co-founder of Coffee Kids and founder of the Coffee Trust, published two comments in response to my recent post on FTUSA’s Fair Trade for All vision that were too good not to run as posts unto themselves. In the first, which appears below, he argues against FT4All in a long and passionate comment […]
Bill Fishbein, co-founder of Coffee Kids and founder of the Coffee Trust, published two comments in response to my recent post on FTUSA’s Fair Trade for All vision that were too good not to run as posts unto themselves. In the second, which appears below, he suggests that FT4All could generate benefits for smallholder farmers […]
Fair Trade USA recently decided to break with Fairtrade International and change the rules governing Fair Trade Certification. Fairtrade International, for its part, decided to increase the representation of producers in its governing body. These decisions shine some light on a dimension of the coffee trade that often goes unnoticed and underappreciated — coffee chain governance. […]
Fair Trade USA set off a swirl of controversy with its recent decision to open the U.S. market for Fair Trade Certified coffee to estates. Lost in the furor was the fact that Fair Trade for All won’t just open the door to estates. It will also create new opportunities for unorganized farmers — a measure that has the […]
