Professor Colleen Haight is a fair-minded person. But not fair in the sense implied by ‘Fair Trade’.
Far from it, in fact. During this short clip, you’ll be taken through a savagely systematic dismantling of the Fair Trade model when it is compared to direct trade coffee (of the specialty variety!!). As always, the injustice of Fair Trade lies in the fine print, whereby the regulations require a coffee farmer to actually own their own land in order to receive the benefits of the higher Fair Trade price. In reality, however, the people who really do the hard work are migrant farmers who don’t own any land at all!
Instead, they move around from one plot to the next to keep up with seasonal hiring demands. As a result, the Fair Trade premium lands in the pocket of the landowner who wouldn’t know which end of a shovel to use! But the best bit – YOU can correct this injustice by voting with your taste buds the next time you go to top up your bean stash. Instead of buying Fair Trade and making a well-off land-owner even better off, opt instead for the beans that cost about the same price AND taste waaaaay better!! We are talking about specialty coffee, of the MOYEE VARIETY!!!
