Coffee trade in addition to fair trade, partners, fair buying and selling

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"who knows the fragrance in the cup, every grain is the hard work of the farmers." whenever we taste a cup of coffee, we discuss nothing more than the aroma, flavor, origin, and so on, but in fact, the most important thing behind it is the hard-working coffee farmers. In the past, the hard work of farmers was not taken seriously, and their exploitation led to generations of poverty, and no matter how hard they tried, they could not turn around. But over the past decade, with the efforts of willing people and the growing emphasis on the variety of coffee, the way to protect farmers' transactions has been paid more and more attention, and fair trade is the most common thing to hear. It's just that Fairtrade is not the only one that can protect farmers (and in fact, there is a lot of controversy about Fairtrade). This time, the editor will introduce a few more transaction modes with moral guarantee.

Direct trade

As the name implies, coffee roasters communicate and trade directly with producers, such as intellectual Coffee (Intelligentsia) and counter-Cultural Coffee (Counter Culture) from the United States, which are coffee brands conducted by direct trade, and all have their own direct trade certification. The intellectual Coffee Club examines whether farmland conforms to their friendly environmental norms, including the use of herbicides, pesticides, wastewater treatment and forest vegetation maintenance. the norms will also have different standards according to different growing environments (so intellectual coffee is not all organic!) On the other hand, counter-cultural coffee has set a floor price (like Fairtrade) and quality standards, and the producers who cooperate with them are not limited to being members of cooperatives, so small farmers are not afraid of opportunities.

Partner

The ongoing partnership between coffee producers and roasters usually cooperates with each other for improved quality and acquisition prices that are more conducive to sustainability. The most famous partnership program is the Red Cherry Project (Operation Cherry Red). The Dutch coffee bean merchants (Trabocca) will first select specific cooperatives in the producing areas (currently mainly in Ethiopia) to provide funds, equipment and technology to harvest 100% red cherries as the target, select specific quality coffee beans (the cup score threshold is 88 points), if the cup test results exceed the threshold, the Dutch coffee bean merchants will also increase the purchase price.

Fair sale

Unlike Fairtrade, fair trading has good transparency and traceable information on each transaction and pays a higher price to the producer. This model does not have an authentication system to define each transaction, but all participants work together to complete the transaction in a good direction, and third-party organizations are sometimes involved.

The purpose of these trading models is to allow roasters to buy more coffee beans that are easy to trace, reduce unnecessary middlemen in the supply chain, and pay higher prices to reward producers who are willing to produce higher-quality coffee beans.

Of course, these models will inevitably be subject to some criticism, after all, the lack of proof of a third-party certification organization system, it is difficult to confirm whether the roaster is really as practical as these models to purchase coffee beans.

If you want to strike a balance between a friendly environment and protecting farmers' income when enjoying coffee, you have these options in addition to Fairtrade, which can even save you some money. If you can't identify it, you can also check the packaging label. If you have detailed traceability information such as the name of the producer, the cooperative, the name of the disposal plant, etc., it is possible for the producer to get a better income.

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