Mmmmm.ÂÂ
But Café Britt is not welcome on the Fairtrade scheme. Most of Café Britt’s farmers are self-employed small businesspeople who own the land they farm. This is wholly unacceptable to the rigid ideologues at FLO International, Fairtrade’s international certifiers, who will only accredit the farmers if they give up their small business status and join together into a co-operative. “It’s like outlawing private enterprise,†says Dan Cox, former head of the Speciality Coffee Association of America. Many African farmers, organised along tribal lines, are similarly excluded from the scheme. Other producers complain that accreditation is needlessly bureaucratic and costs five times as much as organic certifications.
Café Britt accuses the Fairtrade scheme of failing to understand the cultural realities in countries like Costa Rica where many farmers simply do not want to become part of co-operatives. Unlike campaigners’ romantic vision of developing country co-ops, the overwhelming evidence is that they are breeding grounds for corruption and abuse of workers. Co-operative leaders, who routinely get re-elected in fiddled votes, rake money from ordinary farmers, keeping them in the dark about their output’s true worth.
Keep your ideology out of my . . . double mocha latte!
Mysteries of thee male psyche: A friend of mine . . . expert theorist on the operation of the male psyche . . . offers to answer questions put by the women readers of Protein Wisdom. Please forward them to me, if you’re interested.
Does anyone other than hippie children of rich capitalists buy that fair trade stuff, anyways? Seems like a rather small market to try to enter.
Unfortunately, the hippie children of rich capitalists have a way of inheriting their parents’ businesses and making top-down policy changes.
I have to admit that, all things being equal, such as buying coffee at the Quik-Stop on the way to work, I’ve been choosing “fair trade” on the theory that perhaps more money got to the workers.
So, I’m going to be really skeptical of fair trade carbon offsets.
“Unfortunately, the hippie children of rich capitalists have a way of inheriting their parents’ businesses and making top-down policy changes.”
Yes, with the end results usually being those businesses entering gradual, but irreversible, death spirals. My evidence? Look no further than the New York Times.
So forced collectivism and boutique socialism is worse for workers than capitalism and private property?
Huh.
How dare you doubt the wisdom of co-operatives! In Venezuela, Chavez nationalized the big haciendas, turned them into cooperatives, and doubled agricultural production in the last nine years. As a result, grocery shelves in Venezuela are filled to the seams with inexpensive food for the masses!
Dan, I want to submit a question for the expert male psychee guy.
I have a friend who is not a rakeho like all her other friends and she likes this really-really hot guy in her third period Social Studies class but she doesn’t know how to let the really hot guy know that she likes him. What should she do?
Thanks, Cornurella. I’ll definitely pass it along.
You had me going there for a second, Grin… It’s almost as though you believed that nonsense! LOL
I saw something on (cable) TV recently about the dark side of “Fair Trade Coffee Cooperatives” that said much the same thing. I wish I could remember what and where it was.
That one is easy, Cindy. She should flash her tits at him. Unless she can pull this off, of course.
Looks like Café Britt is available at Amazon.com. I’m going to give some a try.
Although, oddly, the Amazon blurb says “fair trade certified”. Go figure.
Reason Magazine published a very nice article about the ill effects of Fair Trade’s co-ops. The article was entitled “Absolution in Your Cup: The real meaning of Fair Trade coffee.”
http://www.reason.com/news/show/33257.html
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