It is week 2 of the #fairtrade fortnight and I am here to share with you some of the thoughts running through my mind with a view to encouraging debate. To that end I have some questions and will share with you something from my travels. 1. why would you choose to buy fair-trade over any other brand 2. Should the concept of fair-trade be extended to European farmers? Why Last year was an interesting year for me in more than one way. Ethnic Supplies headed out in a new direction as service provider. The first person wanting my services was a coffee roaster based in North London and my brief was to help him trade more ethically! The first thing we did was to hit the road to Uganda so that I could introduce him to some coffee growers. Our first stop was Eastern Uganda, home to the famous Bugisu Arabica coffee beans. We were met by the co-op's Managing Director, a really pleasant man. My client tasked him whether his coffee was fair-trade certified. The answer was an emphatic NO! And before we asked nay more questions he continued , "we used to be but had to pull out" neither I nor my client asked why. But our host went on to say, since pulling out we are exploring the idea of processing and roasting our own coffee prior to exporting it. We believe we can earn more money for our growers that way!" We really couldn't argue with this. if you think about it coffee beans in their raw form are of no value but it the fact that value can be added to them to the extent that the end user would happily pay £3 or more for a cup of coffee that makes them interesting. raw coffee beans So my question is, Are we being fair to the coffee growers by allowing them only 3% of the overall profit by adding value else where? What is the worst that could happen if we transferred technology and skills to them that enabled them to export a fully packaged coffee to us and thus capture more of that 97% profit? What do you think. are we as fair as we could possibly be? If you enjoyed reading this you may find this post interesting too Ending poverty in Africa isn't about being fair Let them Help themselves out of poverty Unusual fashion accessories Have you joined LTHT Ethnic Supplies Blog http://lethemhelpthemselves.org/grand-spring-raffle