Is There Justice in Your Java?
Christians are examining how the coffee we drink can be supporting or exploiting the world’s poor.
by Emily Wierenga
Photos courtesty Rita Bailey, Jason Hofing and Mitchell Brown
Canadians consume over 40 million cups of coffee a day. That’s nearly 15-billion opportunities to help alleviate world poverty each year.
 Rita Bailey |
The majority of the globe’s 25 million coffee growers receive less than 10 percent of the product’s revenue. While retailers, wholesalers and large coffee chains reap massive profit, many coffee farmers remain trapped in extreme poverty, struggling to send their children to school, or even to keep food on their family’s table.
“I’m not sure if you can be called a Christian if you’re not acting out your faith in a way that is helping the marginalized,” says retired teacher Rita Bailey, who chairs the Social Justice Committee at St. Joseph’s Parish in Hamilton.
Since joining the Committee four years ago, Bailey has helped to instigate the selling of fair trade coffee after church each week. “It’s not enough just to fill a seat at church on Sunday,” she says. “You really need to put your faith into action, and you can’t do that unless you fulfill the social justice mandate of the Gospel.”
Gail Lorimer of Burlington agrees. Drinking fair trade coffee, she says, is the least she can do to help the disadvantaged. “We should spend the money, because it’s fair. It’s just. (After all), we’re living on the backs of the poor.”
 Gail Lorimer |
Sixty-four-year-old Lorimer began selling wholesale fair-trade coffee to members of East Plains United in 1983, after becoming acquainted with Bridgehead—an organization started by four individuals who sold coffee beans out of a church basement in Toronto.
“Bridgehead was the very first of the first in Canada,” recalls the retired child-care worker. “They were using their own money to bring beans from across the world.”
Today the non-profit organization has expanded into an online store, with various locations across Ottawa. “Bridgehead believes that the third-world worker is working for slave wages, and it’s true,” says Lorimer. “We’re treating them like slaves.”
She backs up her statement by reading an excerpt from Fred Pearce’s Confessions of an Eco Sinner (Beacon Press, 2008). “Our whole trading system is wrong,” Lorimer summarizes. “Everything we eat and wear, and buy—what it requires for our stuff, for us, to live! We are, in effect, raping the world.”
Lorimer’s passion for social justice stems from her faith. “The Creator loves us all—but do we really believe this?” she asks incredulously. “The Lord cares for the third world as much as he cares for the first. How can we live the way we do, and believe the child in Africa is truly our brother, our sister?”
She pauses. “I think the dear Creator looks down on the world and weeps.”
Dependent on the middle man, coffee farmers’ wages fluctuate with the rise and fall of the market. As a result, small coffee producers are paying for westerners to continue feeding their legally addictive habit which, for Canadians, translates into 2.6 cups of coffee per person each day.
To keep up with rising demands, farmers have resorted to selling coffee exclusively. Not only is this resulting in tropical deforestation, due to sun-grown coffee farms, but in the removal of fresh, local produce.
Fair trade certification insists upon shade-grown coffee, thereby saving the environment and local food supply; it also halts the robbery of small farmers—assuring them at least 28 cents of every dollar spent, and negating the need for the middle man altogether.
“Fair trade rebalances power within trade,” says Michael Zelmer, communications relations manager for TransFair Canada. “Within the certification system, producers benefit from longer-term contracts, access to credit, and established price floors that protect them from exploitive prices.”
A decade ago, Canadians purchased more than 21,500 kilograms of fair trade beans. By 2004, sales had jumped to 940,000 kilograms. On April 17, 2007, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, became Canada’s first fair-trade town, and in 2008, in spite of the economic recession, sales of fair-trade products rose by 67 percent.
Still, while 63 percent of Canadians consume coffee on a daily basis, only four percent drink fair-trade.
 Dennis Howlett: Moving beyond charity |
Moving beyond charity, Dennis Howlett, coordinator of Ottawa-based Make Poverty History, was involved in establishing Canada’s TransFair certifying agency over ten years ago. He’s also helped promote fair trade certified coffee in churches across Canada, through the ten Days for Global Justice Campaign.
“We want to help people move beyond a charity response, and understand that trade is one of the main causes of impoverishment in the third world.”
It’s a hard issue for people to wrap their heads around, Howlett admits, “but when it’s connected to the cup of coffee they drink, it’s easier for them to understand.”
Going fair trade, Howlett believes, is entwined with the Christian commitment to live an ethical life. “We need to try, whenever possible, to apply the same standards and ethics which are consistent with Christian teachings, not just to our personal life, but also to our financial and economic behaviour.”
It’s also entwined with the biblical Golden Rule—requiring that we reconsider the definition of “neighbour.” “We are global citizens now; our neighbours are people all around the world. We have some responsibility to ensure the human dignity of people around the world.”
Blending the ‘local’ and ‘global’ need for social responsibility, and the power of coffee to connect people, has been at the heart of the mission of Hamilton’s Freeway coffee house.
Since opening in 2005 at the corner of King and Wellington at the east end of downtown Hamilton, Freeway is a fair-trade coffee house that has become a neighbourhood cultural centre that brings people together not only over coffee, but also through art and music.
 Erin Poole |
The over-arching principle of fair trade is that of right relationship between buyer and producer, explains Erin Poole, a 30-year-old chaplain who serves fair-trade coffee after church at Hamilton’s Little Bethel Community Church.
“The parable of the Good Samaritan answers the question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ by presenting the scenario of a person in need. In the case of global fair trade, we’re supporting people in need by choosing products that allow them to make a living for themselves and their families without taxing their personal health and safety or the environment.”
 Jason Hofing: People before profits |
Jason and Rachel Hofing founded Hamilton’s Red Hill Coffee Trade after becoming aware of the plight of coffee farmers worldwide.
“Farmers can barely feed their families, and often grow drug crops to supplement their meagre income,” says Jason, father of two who attends Meadowlands Fellowship in Ancaster. “Coffee farmers often have no access to clean water or medical treatments, and they need to enlist the help of their smallest children in order to pick enough coffee beans to keep them eating one meal a day.”
Red Hill imports coffee from nine different countries. The profits from coffee sales are sent directly to coffee cooperatives, where the money is democratically allocated.
“I contribute quarterly fees for the marketing and promotion of fair-trade so that none of the coffee sales go towards TransFair,” explains Jason. “By buying fair-trade, we’re putting an emphasis on people, not profits. We start a new identity as those who care and allow others the dignity we expect for ourselves, instead of those who help continue the cycle of exploitation.”
 Chris Middlebro |
Lorimer’s brother, Chris Middlebro, of Oakville, admits he didn’t start caring about the issue of fair-trade until two years ago, when a young person from his church, Glen Abbey United, returned from a mission trip.
“She had just returned from a placement in Central America, where she was a support person for female local folk suffering from human rights abuses,” recalls Middlebro.
“Her talk was powerful and finished with ways to support her mission—one of which was to buy fair trade products. I was thus inspired to finally take some action.”
Today he and his wife oversee the sales of fair-trade coffee every Sunday after church. Yet Middlebro admits to still ordering the occasional Tim Hortons double-double.
Founded in Hamilton in 1964, Tim Hortons has become a national icon with more than 2,800 stores across Canada. Unfortunately, while toting a coffee sustainability program, Tim Hortons, like Williams Coffee Pub, does not offer a fair-trade option like that found at Second Cup or Starbucks.
“We believe the best approach to addressing the long-term issues facing coffee growers is through a ‘coffee sustainability’ program,” remarks David Morelli, director of public affairs for Tim Hortons, Inc. “Our goal is to get farmers’ coffee to market at the best time and for the best price, while emphasizing the need to respect and protect the environment.”
Unfortunately, says Paula Barrios, research analyst for Shareholder Association for Research & Education (SHARE), coffee sustainability programs do not compare to the benefits offered by fair-trade certification.
 A Honduran farmer displays his harvest of coffee beans. |
“It is very difficult to verify their effectiveness,” she explains, “since those programs usually involve a two-way relationship between coffee retailers and growers, with no third party certification involved. There is therefore no way of knowing whether, under such programs, farmers are getting a minimum fair price for their coffee, or whether key social (including labour), environmental and trading standards are being followed.”
In contrast, she says, the Fair Trade system enjoys superior credibility worldwide, with third-party monitoring and certification at the core of the system. “Independent certification is essential to earning credibility in the marketplace, and claims of sustainability that are not verified by an independent party or supported by clear standards against which performance can be measured are not acceptable to many consumers, investors and other stakeholders.”
This fall, SHARE is joining forces with Hamilton’s Gary Hawton, founder of Meritas Mutual Funds, which owns shares in Tim Hortons, in order to challenge the coffee company to adopt a fair-trade alternative.
“Our goal isn’t to change the worst of performers, but the best, about an issue in which we’d like to see them take leadership,” says Hawton from his Kitchener-based office. “We’re not trying to air out Tim Hortons’ dirty laundry; rather, we believe they’re a leader in many other areas, and this is one area in which they’ve fallen behind.”
 Gary Hawton of Meritas Mutual Funds, which specializes in
socially responsible investments, is challenging Tim Hortons
to demonstrate leadership and a commitment to farmers in
developing countries by offering a ‘fair trade’ coffee to
consumers. |
Over the next year, Hawton and his Christ-centred business will challenge Tim Hortons through letters and conversations. He encourages Christian consumers to work alongside him, by educating themselves on fair-trade, and truly understanding the economics of the coffee market.
“Don’t just ask Tim Hortons for a fair-trade alternative,” he cautions. “Find out how much it will actually cost per cup, and express to your franchisee that you’d be willing to pay a bit more for the assurance that the person who makes their living by growing the coffee is being paid a reasonable wage.”
The average global wage is three dollars per day. No matter North America’s financial struggles, they’re nothing compared to the hardships facing much of the world each day.
“I can afford to pay a few cents more for my double-double,” says Hawton, “to make sure that the person who worked hard to make my coffee can send his kids to school. These are our global neighbours, and we are incredibly blessed to know them.”
Emily Wierenga is an author based in Blyth, Ontario. Her book, Save My Children, is available through Castle Quay Books.
Used with permission. Copyright © 2009 Christianity.ca.
Originally published in Beacon, Septebemr/October 2009.
Used with permission. Copyright © 2009 Christianity.ca.
Reader Comments