mie

"gjør fremtidens merkesak til en vanesak" in norwegian can be translated to something similar to "making the future's labeling issue into a choice of habit"...or something. doesn't rhyme in english, but...this is what norwegians can see on giant posters and in magazine ads all over the country right now, it's a governmental supported campaign that will go on for about a month. celebrities are advocating the importance of making the right choice, advocating the importance of certifications.

so, friday morning after viewing the campaign on several posters walking over to MOCCA and KAFFAbutikk from JAVA, i tried to get a little bit deeper in the shit, googling fair trade (FT) in norway. i even met a political advisor for the government (supporting the campaign) at bar JAVA last night who i got to discuss this fascinating subject with briefly. respect & thank you to my new friend jørund. what i found of particular interest googling the subject, was that fair trade is something businesses mention quite frequently, and consumers seems to be obsessing about right now. the discussion board of the campaign’s web site is full of questions about where these fine commodities can be bought. oh my, what did i get myself started with and why don't i like it particularly much?

over the years, many, many customers have asked me about fair trade. why we don’t do FT coffees. working on the slow food event in the us, i became aware of the fact that there is some kind of “atlantic gap” here, but also in norway, consumers are more and more aware of and willing to discuss the issue of fair trade certifications. the fact is, that for instance some of the ethiopia / kenya coffees we’ve been buying are fair trade certified. organic hooray. you name it. but KAFFA never label the coffees with certifications – and we don’t say direct trade either. this is certainly not something only caused by the atlantic gap i mentioned ealier, there are enough roasteries doing this kind of labeling here.

in fact, i think i've concluded my part so far. most often my problem (read about my husband describing me "stubborn as a goat" in a previous post). fair trade isn’t good enough. it’s not good enough for the farmers, and it’s not good enough for businesses or consumers. i know i’m stepping on people’s toes here, but so be it. isn’t the only fair thing to pay farmers the right price to do an amazing job with what they grow? i'm in coffee solely for the sake of coffee. doing healthy business is just what it takes.

so, what is the right price? i used to study economy – and one of my favorite part was microeconomics and game theory. pricing, while not rocket science, is pretty important and deserves a lot more attention than many people give it, especially in an industry based on a commodity most often known for being extremely fragile for the market's response for pricing.

for those who didn't hear about that, world trade organization (WTO)'s important doha round was a lot about farm subsidies. as far as i am concerned, FT doesn't diverse too much from subsidies. paying a tiny bit of money (i don't know the current premium, but it's a matter of cents per pound / ca 450g) above the market price, doesn't allow for anything but even more overproduction. current producers are producing more coffee from higher yielding varietals - like the colombiana case in colombia, of lower cup quality - and new producers enters the market on these premises. again, leading to over production and lower prices in the marketplace. and a tiny premium to the producers joining cooperatives who are FT certified.

my last point is a bit vague, although i'm working on it. it is my firm belief after meeting many coffee producers, that joining cooperatives will only limit their opportunities since they will never be able to reach a niche in the marketplace. in coffee, FT is based on political assumptions about how to organize labour. since this certification is only available not to a single farm, but only to coops, coffee that most specialty coffee roasters are buying from i.e. central america won't be FT certified. from the producers perspective, one can be forced into putting your coffee into a coop instead of trying to hit a market niche of roasters.

a niche where it's all about traceability and transparency. where even a commodity like coffee has it's history. this is our (KAFFA's) first season where our labeling of the coffees highlight the varietal. instead of being tricked into believing you, as a consumer, are doing FAIR TRADE, you can actually make a difference. know your roaster. buy your coffee from someone that's doing real business. when i see a FT coffee in the shelves in the supermarket, and i know that the price difference between that coffee (green) and the other coffees displayed are just a few cents, it's strange that they are sold for such a high price from the (industrialized) roaster. take those few cents, times 10 or there about to find what norwegian consumers think the premium they are paying is. fair trade isn’t good enough. so easy to say, so hard to change consumer's minds.

picture: (morenitos, thanks to my friend chris davidson for this awesome pic)