Urge Your Office to Serve Fair Trade Coffee

Coffee helps you get through your day, but it can also improve the life of someone in the developing world.

When you buy Fair Trade Certified coffee, you know the beans were sold by a small farmers' organization for a price covering both the farmer's costs of production and cultivation in a socially just and environmentally conscious manner.

But you can choose to give small-scale coffee farmers a fair price by purchasing coffee that is labeled as Fair Trade.

Start with your morning cup of coffee at home. Then urge the decision makers in your office to serve only Fair Trade certified coffee.

In Depth

Commodities' markets in developing countries are sometimes dominated by a few large suppliers, who oversupply the market, and drive down the price of goods such as coffee, sugar, tea, spices, and fruit. Free market commodity prices are usually too low for small-scale farmers to turn consistent profits on their harvests.

Fair prices help poor farmers, in places as diverse as Nicaragua, Ethiopia, and Vietnam, to reduce their debt and have more economic options. This improves their standard of living and the health of their household, and allows them to better feed and educate their children.

Fair trade also benefits the coffee farmer's community, as more local jobs are created, and farmers learn more sustainable agricultural practices.

The greater the demand fair trade coffee and other commodities, the greater the number of people who will be lifted out of poverty.