Why we have Fairtrade Coffee at St. John's...
... and why you should think about buying it for home.

Just watch Black Gold, in cinemas from May. According to a review in The Times, ‘Black Gold threatens to do for the multibillion- pound coffee industry what Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me did for fast food: shock consumers into thinking again about what they are buying’.

Multinational coffee companies now rule our shopping malls and supermarkets and dominate the industry worth over $80 billion, making coffee the most valuable trading commodity in the world after oil. But while we continue to pay for our lattes and cappuccinos, the price paid to coffee farmers remains so low that many have been forced to abandon their coffee fields.

Nowhere is this paradox more evident than in Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee. Tadesse Meskela is one man on a mission to save his 74,000 struggling coffee farmers from bankruptcy. As his farmers strive to harvest some of the highest quality coffee beans on the international market, Tadesse travels the world in an attempt to find buyers willing to pay a fair price.

Against the backdrop of Tadesse's journey to London and Seattle, the enormous power of the multinational players that dominate the world's coffee trade becomes apparent. New York commodity traders, the international coffee exchanges, and the double dealings of trade ministers at the World Trade Organisation reveal the many challenges Tadesse faces in his quest for a long term solution for his farmers. For more information, visit www.blackgoldmovie.com
Gordon Wilkinson

Banana Bonus

Sainsbury’s and Waitrose have decided to switch all their bananas to Fairtrade certified. Sainsbury's sells over a million Fairtrade bananas every week. The decision has been greeted with great enthusiasm by the farmers from the Windward Islands, Colombia and the Dominican Republic who will benefit from these increased sales.

The growers are hoping to use the Fairtrade premium to improve facilities in the local community.
Fair Comment magazine