Fair Trade coffee beans are grown, harvested, and sold in a way that is humane to workers and respectful of the environment. The certification ensures farmers receive an adequate wage to survive and pay for their needs, preventing situations involving unsafe child labor and fostering future generations of successful farmers. Fair Trade certification also raises funds to build schools and develop environmentally friendly practices.
Fair Trade coffee beans are coffee beans that are grown, harvested, and sold to exporting companies in ways that are intended to be humane to workers and respectful of the environment. These types of beans are typically indicated by a seal or similar image on the coffee packaging indicating that the beans used to make the coffee were Fair Trade coffee beans. Numerous retailers sell Fair Trade coffee beans, and numerous coffee shops have begun selling coffee made from Fair Trade beans to promote fair treatment for those who work to produce the coffee they sell.
The primary purpose of certification for Fair Trade coffee beans is to ensure the farmers who produced the coffee have an adequate wage to continue to survive and pay for their needs. In recent decades, the price of coffee sold in regions such as South America has steadily decreased. The lowest rates are paid to the farmers who grow and harvest the coffee, often people who own and operate fairly small farms. These rates are often not enough for farmers to actually survive and the situation has created a cycle of debt and poverty from which many of these farmers are unable to escape.
Although the price paid by coffee exporters and buyers has dropped dramatically, the cost for the bags or cups of coffee served to customers has not dropped significantly. The huge difference between these two numbers has generally been maintained by the companies that sell the coffee for profit. Free trade coffee beans are beans that are guaranteed to get paid at a decent level that better ensures that growers are able to survive on what they get paid. This helps prevent situations involving unsafe child labor and sloppy practices leading to injury and fosters future generations of successful farmers.
Free Trade coffee beans are certified by an independent, non-governmental agency that intends to ensure that coffee farmers are compensated fairly for their work. Fair Trade certification is also used to raise funds to build schools in areas that need them and help farmers develop environmentally friendly practices. Anyone interested in buying Fair Trade coffee beans can look for the certification seal on the packaging or displayed in various shops that serve coffee. The beans can be found in a number of manufacturers’ retailers such as Green Mountain and Seattle’s Best, and coffee brewed from such beans is now offered by major coffee shops such as Starbucks.
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