Fair Trade Certified Coffees
Fair Trade Certified coffee ensures that farmers are being paid and treated fairly. The farmers are paid a fair trade premium to ensure that they have money to invest in their communities. The money supports through health care, education, and capital to improve equipment and harvest methods.
The Fair Trade Certified label guarantees a fair price, environmental sustainability, fair labor conditions, direct trade, and community development. Farmers receive fair prices for their product earmarked for community development projects. They are also eligible for pre-harvest credit.
Fair Trade also pays a premium for organic coffee encouraging farmers to grow organic where possible to help protect the environment.
Why is Fair Trade needed in the world today? Family farmers follow generation of tradition to farm the products we enjoy. When these farmers do not receive a fair price for the crops, often having to sell to middlemen who take a huge profit, they are put in debt. This often causes them to leave their lands and heritage, destroying the cultural fabric of the communities. The whole world hurts with this occurs, immigration increases, products become inferior in quality and some resort to large-scale farming methods that are not eco-friendly and do more damage to the environment. So by buying Fair Trade helps not only the producers of the product but also the consumer and the earth.