By Amy Szkorla
With a never-ending string of midterm exams and finals looming in our near future, I for one am reaching for my coffee mug now more than ever. Coffee is a staple in so many people's diet, yet we rarely consider what it takes to get from the plant to our cup. Coffee is one of the most widely consumed yet problematic products on the market for farmers. Here's why.
Brazil, Vietnam, Colombia, Indonesia, and Ethiopia are some of the world's top coffee bean producers. They grow encapsulated inside a bright red berry from the Coffea family. Coffee farmworkers are subject to incredibly long days picking these berries, offered pennies in return for their arduous labor.
While the average cup of coffee costs somewhere around $3.00, farm workers see just a few cents of this profit. This is partly due to the vast availability of coffee. While great for consumers, this means that global coffee prices are incredibly low, manifesting in equally low wages for workers. Less than 14% of coffee is purchased as certified sustainable, meaning most farmers aren't fully compensated for their labor. This has led to many coffee farmers being pushed below the poverty line, unable to provide for themselves or their families.
As always, the questions becomes "what can we, as consumers, do to fix an issue that is largely out of our hands?" One way to support farmworkers is to sign this petition! Beyond that, you should practice ethical consumption on campus and in your own home by purchasing Fair Trade Certified coffee beans. While all the dining halls on campus serve FT coffee, we decided to test out a new brand at Foster Walker Dining Commons: Stivers coffee. This is a locally processed and ethically sourced brand based in Chicago, which has so far gotten rave reviews from students and staff. Serving FT coffee is one part of Northwestern's larger effort to become a Fair Trade Certified campus. This certification recognizes the efforts of institutions to offer a selection of Fair Trade products and host events that educate their student body on the impacts of buying FT. This is also a shameless plug to keep an eye out for FT events on campus!
So, whether you're stopping in at a Plex to grab a quick cup or brewing your own at home, it's important to remember the distance your coffee has traveled and the work that went into transforming those bright berries into your perfect cup.
Check out Stivers coffee here: https://stiverscoffee.com/pages/about-stivers
Sign the Petition here: https://www.change.org/p/international-coffee-organization-support-a-living-income-for-coffee-farmers-sign-the-coffeepledge
Achieving Sustainable Development in the Coffee Sector - Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, ccsi.columbia.edu/work/projects/coffee/.