Do you know?

1. Coffee is the most popular beverage worldwide with over 400 billion cups consumed each year.

2. The world’s largest coffee producer is Brazil with over 3,970 million coffee trees. It’s also the leader in coffee employment with over 5 million people employed by the coffee trade industry.

3. Finland consumes the most coffee, averaging 24 pounds per person, per year.

4. With the exception of Hawaii and Puerto Rico, no coffee is grown in the United States or its territories.

5. Over 53 countries grow coffee worldwide, but all of them lie along the equator.

6. Major per-capita consumers of coffee are Canada, the United States, Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Nordic countries.

Coffee is traded as a commodity, second to oil. Few people realize that agricultural workers in the coffee industry often toil in what can be considered “sweatshops in the fields”. Many small coffee farmers receive prices for their coffee that are less than the cost of production, forcing them into poverty and dept. Fair Trade is a viable solution to this crisis. Organizations work directly with cooperatives of small farmers to eliminate much of the middleman costs and provide the growers with a stable price that ensures a reasonable standard of living. Most of the fair trade organizations also encourage their growers to employ sustainable farming practices, such as organic and shade grown.

Coffee drinkers everywhere now have the option of forgoing ordinary cups “o joe” for organic, fair trade choices. This is a huge industry trend, but the words “organic” and “fair trade” lose their meaning when they are not backed up by commitment that goes beyond advertising hype. There are over 100 companies that have licensing agreements with TransFair (the only independent, third-party certifier of fair trade products in the US) who offer fair trade coffee. Major companies include Starbucks (of course), Tully’s, Equal Exchange and Green Mountain to name a few.

An organic fair trade farm is designed to give back to the land as much as it receives. In addition, when you buy organic fair trade coffee, you are actively contributing to the betterment of someone’s life, family, community and environment.