Who deserves Vegan Society approval? A product or a company?

Recently i saw The Vegan Society has announced that Nestle had launched new vegan latte drinks with the Vegan Society approved logo.

Surprise, surprise they got a lot of stick for it, given Nestle’s practices over the years. How could an organization such as the Vegan Society dare to ‘endorse’ Nestle by approving one of their products to carry its logo? Surely this is unethical and against the very values they stand for? The Vegan Society responded saying they endorse only products not companies. Many people threatened to withdraw their membership in protest.

Ok, I understand. I’m not rushing out to buy one of these new products. But some perspective please. Are the Vegan Society helping large corporations engage in co-optation or vegan-washing? Are multinationals jumping in on a thunderous vegan bandwagon? Arguably yes.

I’ve seen all this play out with Fairtrade certification, there are innumerable products available with a fair trade certified logo that are from Big Corp. Has it harmed or helped the cause of fair trade? Both. You bring a wider audience, more revenue to those who need it but the risks of diluting the fair trade brand are high, and now we see some large companies creating their own ‘fair’ label, which carries far less accountability. But to ask that the Vegan Society become some kind of moral, ethical arbitrator of companies is not workable either, not yet anyway. Nestle seems a perfect case of Big Bad Corp, but where do you draw the line? What about supermarket own-brands? Or those smaller vegan companies who get bought out by the multinationals? It’s not so clear cut.

Should the Vegan Society have refused to endorse these Nestle products? Quite possibly yes, but on what grounds? By all means don’t buy their products, I won’t be doing so. To really try to see the amount of work necessary to investigate how ethical a company is, please turn to Ethical Consumer.

But it is a question worth asking: should the Vegan Society be held up as an organisation that considers the ethics of a company, not purely the product itself? How many Vegan Society Approved products would disappear from the supermarket shelf? And would that be a good thing?

@theoriginalvegansociety

@ethical_consumer_magazine

Fair trade artisans, Lima, Peru

In Lima I took to the local bus service to see if I could reach the CIAP office (the organisation I became familiar with in Puno), obscurely located in the dusty streets of the suburb San Martin des Porres. I thought the bus ride (colectivo) would be the tricky part but when I did eventually make it I was confounded by the streets and their obscure street numbering. I don’t think the neighbourhood was used to a lost-looking gringo wandering up and down the main road, but somehow I eventually found what I was looking for.

I was warmly welcomed at CIAP; yet again I was dropping in on someone unannounced.

A couple of the CIAP staff

CIAP offered an interesting insight into all the various complexities of Fair Trade and its benefits and drawbacks. CIAP includes artisans and related organisations so is different from a straight-up coffee or cacao co-operative.

Several staff are located here who look after a variety of activities all under the CIAP umbrella. Carmen and Roxanne worked for Pachamama, a tourist operator.

Pachamama tourist poster, in French

Moner coordinates exports of artisan products, mostly to the USA and Europe (Intercrafts). Yesenia worked as an administrator and had only started a few months ago. She was responsible for the credit ‘part’ of CIAP, which, with three offices (Lima, Juliaca and Puno) allowed artisans to borrow money to support their businesses.

Moner, with a ready laugh, reminded me of a long-forgotten cartoon character

The CIAP office is the hub of all the initiatives geared towards helping poor and marginalised communities. It is particularly focused on women (72% of members are female). Since 2011 they have had fair trade certification with WFTO (World Fair Trade Organisation), nearly 20 years after its founding in 1992.

Maleni, co-ordinator, PR, and chief smiler

CIAP is set up differently to the other fair trade organisations I had visited, primarily because it is not a co-operative (in the way a coffee or banana co-op might be). It developed from trying to assist individual artisans and consider itself as a ‘family’ rather than a co-operative. Each artisan remains an individual member and CIAP offers support and assistance in different ways. It still has a small membership, maybe 300 or so and is formed by small associations (perhaps 15-20 people on average). Individual members are given contracts of two or three years and paid a minimum price based on hours worked. Support comes from providing resources and education (for example, what is considered the latest fashion; internet skills) to credit facilities to providing a more direct link and space to sell their products.

Jorge, CIAP President

But it has been a difficult 20 years. It is still a struggle to ensure artisans are able to have a minimum living wage; their products are typically more expensive than others; retail locations are expensive to maintain. Indeed, two locations in Lima had closed in recent years. The shop in Puno was helped by the travel agent income located next door. However, without the help of CIAP, these artisans would be in a more vulnerable situation.

Decorating the CIAP office were various contributions from artisan members

Showcasing the crafts of CIAP members

CIAP is many-faceted, but it was a sobering way to end my fair trade visits. From talking to Jorge and his staff here it was pretty clear that even with fair trade, the artisans they help still struggle in their daily lives. The image of happy producers, gainfully employed, providing for their families – the kind you often see on brochures and posters in shops in our countries – does not reflect the reality that life is often still a struggle for them. However, without fair trade support, it would be worse.

What future lay ahead? It was difficult to say. With a typical customer such as Ten Thousand Villages (in Canada) reducing the number of their stores in recent years (in Vancouver and Ottawa for example), the producers were still at the mercy of the fair trade ‘market’.

Fair trade definitely helps, says Jorge, but poverty is still endemic in these regions. Life for many of them was simply less worse than without CIAP support. Many times he had asked himself, “how do we really help?”.

 

K’antu fair trade shop, Puno, Peru

Tucked away in an old courtyard, the centuries-old casa del corregidor (the mayor’s house) now serves as a little courtyard housing some of Puno’s socially-minded businesses.

Casa del Corregidor: for socially-minded businesses

A couple of travel agents and a fantastic cafe can be reached via the peaceful courtyard.

If only I had this in my neighbourhood

But tucked to the right of the main entrance was the surprising find, k’antu. It was, as the sign proudly displays, a fair trade shop.

K’antu: a fair trade shop

K’antu is a retail part of the organisation CIAP (Central Interregional de Artisanos) that for more than 20 years has tried to assist the more vulnerable people (women in particular) in various parts of Peru, particularly around Puno and Lima, the capital. Individual members of CIAP are organised into associations that typically comprise around 15-20 members. Nearly three-quarters of CIAP members are female. In the Puno region there are about eight different associations.

William Flores is the manager at k’antu and when he wasn’t chatting to one of his local artisan members, he gave me an insight into k’antu’s origins.

William, the manager, talking with a local artisan

Puno is a relatively poor region. The idea of the k’antu shop was to try to take advantage of the tourism in the area and create a space to sell the products made by local artisans.

Bertha prices up some local crafts

It’s membership of the World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO) ensures that all the producers are paid a fair price for the products they create.

K’antu shop entrance, proudly showing its WFTO membership

Using local materials, the biggest sellers here are clothing (made from alpaca and llama wool), jewellery and handicrafts. Each product carries a WFTO label, the name of the artisan who made it and the association name they belong to. In our virtually-connected world it felt more appropriate that I was able to connect to a real person by buying an item from k’antu and supporting fairly the livelihoods of people who’ve lived here for generations.

A map of the area shows where the local artisans live

A sign outside the shop explains what the organisation is

And what better way to finish up a hard afternoon’s shopping than with a cup of local fair trade coffee sat outside in the sunshine.

Good cafe. Good coffee

Enjoying a cup of fair trade coffee at the cafe next door

 

 

 

Puno, Peru: fair trade coffee on the altiplano

Getting through Peru in a short time-frame required some long, gruelling bus rides. Travelling south from Trujillo, I made a quick stopover in Lima before heading south-east where my destination was Lake Titicaca and the Peruvian altiplano, where I wanted to sample something a little different. A brief visit to the shores of Lake Titicaca, more than 3,000 m above sea level, was a place I’d long been intrigued by. It felt like a good place to round things off. With its claim of housing a ship that took 6+ years to make the journey there from sea level made it unconventional to say the least. Not much coffee grows at this altitude but there was an office of a coffee co-operative and also the area was renowned for its artisan and local crafts. Plus a little cool-down from the desert heat was welcome.

Lake Titicaca straddles the border of Peru and Bolivia. Indigenous communities are prevalent throughout the region on both sides of the border. This includes communities who live on Lake Titicaca itself, on floating beds of reeds. The Uros people pre-date Inca civilization. The floating islands are continuously managed by adding more reeds as ones underneath rot away naturally, so the size of each one can change easily. They are a popular tourist draw with regular boat trips from Puno.

The fair trade coffee co-op (CECOVASA) was located in the neighbouring town, Juliaca. Not a logical location for such a co-operative, but my curiosity was piqued enough to try to find out the reason why it was located so high up here on the altiplano. I knew that CECOVASA wouldn’t have any coffee farmers nearby, but I took the 30-minute bus ride from Puno, passing isolated houses and quinoa plots as we trundled across the windswept plain.

Set back from the main road and just outside the town centre, CECOVASA looked drab and dispiriting from the outside. Even a mural on the wall of the various fair trade co-op members within CECOVASA did little to brighten things up, though at least I knew I was in the right place.

As usual I had turned up unannounced and so had no idea what I’d actually get to see, but Jaime, the manager, was on hand to show me around. At least for a little while…I think he soon got bored of that and later left me to my own devices.

The CECOVASA story was somewhat familiar. As with many other coffee co-ops I’d visited, a historic price collapse of coffee (around 2001-02, which had devastated coffee farmers worldwide and led many to simply abandon their farms) subsequently led to an interest and setting up as a fair trade co-op. The co-op collective had started in 1970 with five separate smaller co-ops. Since 2003 it was fair trade and had grown to eight co-ops (10 now) comprising more than 5,000 producers. The Juliaca part of their story was more recent, and looked to be ongoing, given the state of the facility I was visiting.

Inside the facility. To be developed?

Catching up on the ‘roof’

Bags awaiting a fill of local coffee

It wins awards, you know

Bags in the warehouse ready to go

The tasting room

Why not improvise with a football pitch?

Fair trade coffee…

Each sack labelled

One of the staff, working hard…

Not much attention paid to the interior

A bright mural on the outside

Each co-op has its symbol on the exterior wall

It’s a welcoming but misleading sight

More artistry on the exterior wall

This office and warehouse, opened in 2010, was an attempt to get a little closer to the farmers. Although we were more than 3,000 metres up on the plain, we were a lot closer to the producers than before, when these facilities were in Lima. But even today the farmers would pick, wash and bag their coffee at their farms before bringing to Juliaca. Most of the coffee is exported but some high quality coffee is roasted and packaged here for the domestic market. It is this coffee (Tunki) that wins awards – an unusual scenario in fair trade coffee when most of the higher quality is exported abroad.

Award-winning coffee, sold locally: Tunki

I was shown around by Jaime, the general manager. But I was often distracted by his big, bushy hair and capped, rabbit-like front teeth. His dishevelled appearance was a reflection of the co-op itself – a mish-mash of progress and neglect. It was hard to tell if construction had stopped midway through or if it was just slow progress. Despite the new cupping lab and warehouse, many other areas were showing signs of wear and tear, paint flaking off the concrete facades. Perhaps it came down to costs; Jaime was worried about new fair trade certifications. He felt they were needed but the costs added up.

I left with mixed feelings. Many of my fair trade visits left me wondering just much good fair trade was doing. CECOVASA encompassed everything for me, both the positive and negative. I hoped they would succeed but it was difficult to say. I took a bus back to Puno and went to a local cafe to try some award-winning Tunki coffee for myself, hoping I might find an answer.

CO-OP INFORMATION:

• Over 5,000 producers; 20% are women
• All fair trade; 60% is organic
• Currently eight co-ops with more expected to join
• Each co-op has a women’s committee
• Winner of Peru coffee competitions

Fair trade avocados, Trujillo, Peru (Part II)

It is 7am the next day and I am with Mario outside the Fairtrasa office in Trujillo. Already his mobile phone is glued to his ear. On our way south towards Chao, in between his calls, I tried to find out more about the local producers. Fernando and Carlos, from a US-backed NGO, remained quiet in the back.

Fairtrasa work with several associations here, including Mocha and Santa Catalina. Today we visited members from PROPALTO. All export their produce to the USA, Canada and Europe. As well as avocados, some producer members grow mangoes and bananas for export, though they generate a lower income than avocados.

The increased return for avocados has typically been due to the rise in demand in North America and Europe for the Haas variety. Fuerte is a more traditional variety and far more common, going back nearly 100 years. Haas is a recent convert but it generates more demand and higher prices for export. It takes time and money to switch avocado varieties from Fuerte to Haas but all the producers I met were willing to make the change.

I met Mario at the Fairtrasa at 7am, along with Jorge, our driver. Our destination for the day was the area around Chao, south of Trujillo.

Narciso and his wife Rosa were the first producers we visited. He was quite positive about fair trade and its higher prices it generated for him and wanted to convert more of his existing mango trees to avocado. Fairtrasa has committed to buying all their harvest at fair trade prices. Their farm was small and they harvested the production themselves.

Narciso at the entrance to his house. Most producer families live in these types of single story, simple dwellings. Many don’t even have a concrete floor inside.

The children were generally bemused by our presence, and seemed a lot happier tucking into pieces of mango.

The sheltered side of Narciso and Rosa’s house. Their ‘kitchen’ is in the foreground. All the trees are avocado.

Next we met Isidro and Maria. Their situation was similar, farming 4 ha of avocados, though they had plenty of animals too – chickens, sheep, cows and guinea pigs.

Despite only having mud floors, they try to keep things tidy. An elderly neighbour is giving the place a sweep and wash. Isidro built the house himself.

Maria (left) and her neighbour.

The guinea pigs had their home beside the house, but not necessarily for long. I later learned they are a popular local snack.

Isidro and a neighbour tend to their avocado trees.

You can hang your hat, or hang your pet…

Isidro and Maria chatting about avocados with a neighbour…maybe

Catharina and Carmilo lived in the town of Chao on the main road. Their situation contrasted heavily with everyone else I had met. The most prosperous-looking of everyone, they owned a two-story cement house with a garden and a car that they kept in a garage. Carmilo works the land though he also employs two workers. Like Narciso, they had mango trees but wanted to convert them to avocados. Their married son, an electrical engineer, had lived in Italy for 20 years. They had yet to visit them there.

Catharina enjoyed talking and was much in favour of fair trade. Currently they farmed three ha, all organic, but wanted to invest more.

Before we left Chao I was treated to some home brew courtesy of Luis Sanchez, from the NGO. It was merely an aperitif and he seemed genuinely upset when I told I couldn’t join him for mango pisco sours.

A couple of the Fairtrasa office crew in Trujillo.

The Fairtrasa office. All work and no play makes…

CO-OP INFO:

• Comprises more than 75 members (PROPALTO)
• First year of fair trade certification. It took 3 years to transition to fair trade, organic
• Typical producer cultivates less than 5 hectares (ha)
• Also looking at obtaining fair trade certification for mangoes

Fair trade avocados, Trujillo, Peru (Part I)

The first avocado farmer I met made an impression on me of the kind I didn’t expect: his perhaps slightly overweight resemblance to the actor Vince Vaughn. He sported a slouched sombrero, wide-necked shirt and jeans and drove a decked-out, twin-cab Ford pickup truck. I thought I might be in Texas, not northern Peru.

If I had been in Texas, it probably would have been guacamole with everything. In the US avocado really means guacamole. Promoting avocados during this year’s Super Bowl was big business when consumption is peaks. “Avocados from Mexico”, the company behind the Super Bowl advert, proclaim that guacamole is the #1 use of avocados. Nachos anyone..? But let’s look a little beyond this – avocados aren’t only grown in Mexico. I was in dry, dusty Trujillo in northern Peru to see what was happening in the smaller world of fair trade, organic avocados.

CEDEPAS is the local cooperative that until recently produced only conventional avocados. And different varieties too. Most of the exports to North America and Europe are Haas, but there are plenty of others. Haas tends to get the highest price for export, but producers here also have varieties such as Fuerte and Nava, sold locally. Luckily, no such thing as the avozilla.

Fairtrasa started working with the coop three years prior to my visit, at about the same time as an outside NGO. Fairtrasa works with small-scale, marginalised farmers and manages their supply chain, from farmer to the end customer. They helped CEDEPAS transition to organic and fair trade. Organic and fair trade avocados receive higher prices for the farmers despite having to put up with a couple of tougher transitional years.

The advantages of organic and fair trade certification is clear for the farm owner with higher revenue from the better prices. But it was still too early to know the full extent of the benefits for the hired workers. This being their first full year of fairtrade/organic supply, the value of things like the fair trade social premium weren’t fully known. Theresa, a mother of two young daughters, was one of seven workers at the farm we visited. She works on several local farms but the work can be sporadic, not always available. She works on fair trade certified farms but knew nothing about what fair trade was. The seven workers I saw typically bring in 80-100 boxes per day. For this they’re paid 30 soles each (approx. CAN$13).

The transition to fair trade and organic requires more work (including paperwork) and more investment. For example, each tree requires a lot of water. Gallons of water are used to create a ‘moat’ around each plant which is left for 10-15 days. The cycle is then repeated. The new system the farm invested in is more efficient, using a release mechanism underneath the soil to release water each day. But some hard work can’t be changed – weeding is constantly required.

One of my Fairtrasa companions for the day, Sophie, from France, clearly caught the attention of “Vince”, who tried to impress her on our drive home in his pickup truck. He barely noticed that I was there with them. I heard later from Sophie, who hadn’t been enamoured with Vince’s greasy eye-mongering that his main concern for his avocado farm was to make more money. If fair trade allows him to do that, he’ll adopt it. He wasn’t an advocate for fair trade and Sophie indicated that it would be difficult to get him to understand fair trade/organic production and why it exists as it does.

The larger farms like Vince’s rely on hired labour at harvest. But even at the coop/producer Association level there is no formal process yet in place that would give guarantees to the local workers. The farm owner likes to rehire the same workers, but at best it seems to be only based on a verbal agreement to do so.

Fairtrasa’s role has been to share their expertise in order to help bring producers like Vince into the fair trade and organic export market and to help them take advantage of it. It does mean they work with the larger producers so that they can get sufficient volume to ship abroad. Fairtrasa also tries to get large groups of smaller producers together.

The model for fair trade avocados is still developing. In this case, Vince was clearly doing ok for himself, but it his workers had more of a struggle. Would fair trade change any of that for them?

Later we returned to the Fairtrasa office in Trujillo. It was a small, open office; very ‘no frills’. Plenty of thick binders sat on shelves. Computer equipment straggled across simple veneer desks. One lonely table; a whiteboard; a wall calendar. Brown veneer panelling served for wallpaper. It felt very 1970s. But the office had a busy atmosphere, as any typical office would, working on spreadsheets, doing accounts. Despite an imminent audit, the Fairtrasa staff within certainly brought the place to life.

I’d spent the day with Sophie and Jorge (our driver) and now met the rest: Juan, Mario, Juan Carlos, Ivan, Johana and Luis (Luchito). Luis and Mario had phones stuck to their ears, and the others needed to crack on. I knew I would be back the following day so I left them to their work, descended the concrete stairs and headed out into the warm Trujillo afternoon.

Tired workers rest up after a typical day harvesting avocados

The coop also run a horticulture enterprise. The desert climate means creative growing methods are used

Layers of greens bake in the hot sun

The sign behind the workers indicates what lies beyond – land and owner details, avocado variety (Haas), number of trees planted (700) and when (2007)

“Vince”, the farm owner, doing his best impression at non-acting

boxes of freshly picked avocados wait to be loaded

Vince weighs and counts the boxes as they’re loaded into the van

Loading ‘er up

Theresa unloads her picking bag into a box

More unloading

One of the workers sets the box for weighing

The farm lies within this tight band of land that lies between the Pacific and the Andes

In the middle of the farm, a full box sits in the sun

Strange but delicious fruit to be had at lunch

Lunch at the cafe: the owner knows how to carve up a treat

As we drove up to the farm, the local wildlife takes an interest in our wing mirror…

One of the workers showing the different varieties of avocado grown here

Fairtrasa provide the boxes for the coop

A worker takes a quick rest

Sophie from Fairtrasa tries her hand at cutting an avocado from the tree

A worker proudly shows one of hundreds of avocados he picked that day

This low-lying landscape is generally hot and dry, but spectacular views can be had

Our transport for the day, owned by the coop

Peru’s banana farmers hit yet again

The bananeros, banana farmers, in the Piura region of northern Peru have had another kick in the teeth. Often hit by misfortune, the 2012 flooding of their plantations was unprecedented. Their livelihoods were at risk which led one of their buyers, Discovery Organics in Vancouver, to initiate a fundraising campaign for them.

Now they have a different problem – disease. It’s estimated that the region’s producers will face a 45% reduction in their exports this year.

The news in timely. Throughout this year, 2014, the Fairtrade Foundation (UK fairtrade advocacy) have campaigned long and hard to push major supermarkets to supply 100% fairtrade bananas. They personalised this campaign – “Stick With Foncho”. Their efforts are to push major UK supermarkets to switch to 100% fairtrade bananas. Now at year’s end, the pressure is on Asda (owned by Walmart) and Tesco to make the switch.

This is important. Banana farmers (bananeros) have it difficult at the best of times. Hired workers on conventional plantations (such as those owned by Dole and Chiquita) have it worse.

It’s easy to ignore the people behind what we eat. Plenty of people ‘eat local’ but how can you do that with bananas? But I found for myself when I visited these farmers that they have it worse than most. Fairtrade can give these producers a little lifeline. It may be modest, but it helps.

Bananas bear the brunt of cheap agriculture and supermarket price wars. And at this time of year as we’re encouraged to think of others, support fairtrade if you can. Let your local supermarket know too.

Piura, northern Peru: fair trade cacao and coffee

Santiago carefully picks his way through the scattered cacao beans laid out on the table, making selections with a trained eye and placing them in a customised folding tray in front of him. The tray has placeholders for the beans and he fills it row by row. But this is not a tray for display. After it is filled, he folds the tray over, sealing the beans in place. The tray is designed to check the quality of the cacao beans, and it comes with its own built-in guillotine blade. A quick swipe downwards from Santiago and the beans have been sliced in half. He opens the tray to expose the newly-decapitated beans and examines their insides.

Checking the bean quality is an intricate process and this is just one part. The final check is a taste test, but to get to that part requires another few steps. Santiago claims to look after ‘tourism’-related activities but he’s clearly steeped in cacao knowledge. Dressed in a CEPICAFE t-shirt and light waistcoat, he walks me through the process. From the same batch of beans we took some of the ones that had survived the guillotine and placed them in a mini roaster, separate from the ones that roast the coffee. After roasting the shells need to come off and the beans ground up. Grinding is non-technical – hand power is used. Out of that come the cacao nibs. However, the next stage uses white cylindrical tubs with numerous wires and plastic protruding skywards. Looking more like they should be in a hospital, these tubs turn the nibs into cacao liquor. Then it’s poured into small tasting trays and placed in the fridge until Santiago is ready to taste test.

Into Peru
The day before visiting CEPICAFE, the co-op that Santiago works for, I arrived in Piura, northern Peru, on an overnight bus from southern Ecuador. After several weeks in the cooler mountains I was now in the hot, parched flatlands of Piura.

Piura is the main town of the Piura region and was my base for a few days, offering an opportunity to visit a couple of different fair trade co-ops. In common with Ecuador and Colombia, my first sense of Peru was a mix of the relatively affluent and modern (gated houses, a private leisure club, cafes and hotels) together with the more chaotic hustle that characterised the markets, dusty streets and unfinished or rundown buildings of poorer areas. There is a very pleasant central square, an upmarket hotel facing onto it, and it even had a vegetarian restaurant.

It was hard to believe that Piura, a dusty, hot low-lying town, could be home to a coffee co-operative. But because it is the largest town in the region, it works well as a central base for coffee and cacao producers who live in the interior. This particular co-operative, CEPICAFE (coffee producers of central Piura) is large and has a diverse range of products – coffee, cacao, panela (sugar) and fruit juices and jams.

The co-op office is located just outside of the town centre and I arrived unannounced on a hot, sunny morning. Again, I wasn’t sure what might happen – and neither were they – but after an uncertain few minutes I was given the ok for a tour.

This co-op is particularly unique, given its office (and warehouse) location, size and its products. Most producers live quite a distance away up in the high hills but this location in Piura is a step forward. They have a modern operation here and my first glimpse of it was with a young lad called Ivan, who showed all the equipment they use to make batches of fruit pulp for jams and juice. Alas it was out of season so I didn’t get to see the operation running.

The main emphasis of the co-op is in cacao and coffee. It wasn’t coffee harvest season either, so when I first saw the massive warehouse it looked noticeably empty. Only four years old, it was the largest facility I’d seen on my trip; at harvest time they process a huge amount of coffee.

But when it’s not coffee season there is the cacao. The hub of the action, and the fun, is in the quality lab. The lab is at the upstairs in the warehouse and is used for coffee and cacao tasting; today it was cacao.

Very high quality cacao is produced within the co-op. According to Santiago Paz Lopez, the co-op Manager, “we have some of the best cacao in the world”. calls it the gold of Piura, such is its quality and value. One of their varieties of cacao won 1st in a national competition. Earlier in the day that I was there one of CEPICAFE’s US clients visited – a well-known fair trade chocolate producer who have exacting quality requirements.

The warehouse was on the other side of town, so I accompanied Martin there on a tuk-tuk ride from the office. He explained to me that the co-op handles a range of different standards of coffee. Most carry an organic standard as well as one or more fair trade certifications (e.g. FLO, CLAC). Martin had been with the co-op for 12 years and as we wandered around the warehouse he was happy to talk to me for a while about the co-op. However, because my visit was outside of coffee harvest season, the warehouse had an air of slumber about it, except for when we arrived at the quality lab, which was crowded and alive with activity.

Back in the lab, I watched intently as Santiago and his team put the cacao through its paces. As well as conducting the ‘guillotine’ test the cacao needs to be given clearly it’s most important test – tasting. Who could refuse?

Santiago was ready to give the liquor a try. The chilled liquor was softened (in the microwave) and after a few seconds he handed me a little tasting spoon and I dived into the softened cacao. We tasted two varities and I was surprised how easy it was to notice the difference. Despite that, I had to make sure and I was keen to repeat the process…several times.

Martin and I weaved our way across town in a tuk tuk from the office to the warehouse

Martin chats to one of the warehouse employees

The mini roasters are used to roast coffee and cacao for sampling and quality testing. Today was cacao day

CEPICAFE warehouse I

Warehouse inside with different categories of labelling

Santiago checking out some cacao

Ivan walked me through the fruit processing, used to make jams and purees

At the CEPICAFE office in Piura

CEPICAFE warehouse II

More products – jam, sugar, coffee…

CEPICAFE have many clients, including for several brands well known in Canada

This is where the staff get their taste buds tested

Warehouse inside with different categories of labelling

CO-OP STATS
-created in 1995, current Piura office opened in 2001
-approx 6,700 producers, all smallholders (1-2 hectares or less)
-four different cacao varieties, including one called cacao (gran) blanco and chulucanas, both highly valued
-producers live in the Amazonas, Tumbes, Cajamarca and Piura regions
-100% fair trade, 95% organic
-well-known clients include Equal Exchange, Theo chocolate, GEPA and Ethiquable

Loja, Ecuador: on the road to fair trade coffee

By the time I reached picturesque, beautiful Loja in southern Ecuador I’d had a wide range of fair trade experiences throughout the country. But I couldn’t leave without making a trip to a fair trade coffee co-op. Loja is home to an umbrella group of seven  co-operatives called FAPECAFES. One of those co-ops was APECAEL.

I spent a couple of hours there getting to know the organisation and the people. Housed in a modern building within the town, the office looked as typical as anything I’d see in Canada. During the afternoon I arranged a visit for the following day with Roger, a forestry engineer, to visit some producers of the APEACAEL co-op located out in the countryside.

Bright and sharp the next morning I met Roger at the bus terminal. It’s the way to get around of course, cheap and pretty easy. The small, comfortable bus wound its way up through the green hills and then down into San Pedro de Vilcabamba, the picturesque little town where the sparse, one-room office of the co-op was situated. A lone computer, printer and scanner sat on a formica table with a couple of plastic chairs. When we arrived, Sandra, a large grumpy woman wearing sparkly pink toenails came across. She was clearly angry about something, much to Roger’s bemusement. But after five minutes we headed out to visit some producers.

Roger, young-looking, is married with two children. He had an easy laugh and got a lot of enjoyment talking about music and nightclubs. Sometimes the world doesn’t seem so different after all.

This was my first visit to coffee producers in Ecuador and it was definitely different. We made calls via taxi to just two producers. These producers were easy to get to being just a little way out of town.

The producers process and dry their coffee at their homes. There is no communal processing facility that was typical in many of my other visits. Although still basic, the homes here tended to be of a higher standard than what I’d seen in Central America. Slate roofs were common.

We visited Elsa first, but it was a short visit with her and Roger chatting intently for most of the time. The coffee processing was different to what I’d experienced. Behind the house was a plastic covered greenhouse type of frame where the washed coffee was laid out to dry, resembling a hostel room full of bunk beds.

Elsa looked a little worn out, dressed in a dark apron and baseball cap. Her young son hovered around us while we chatted, hiding his face in his green flag for most of the time. Their ginger cat remained highly unimpressed with us, sunning itself on the roof.

After Elsa, we had an even shorter visit to another producer. Again, this one was unique. A couple of men washed their coffee in large blue plastic barrels, swirling it around with long wooden poles. They smoked as they worked. The coffee here was drying out on cement patios rather than the raised beds such as at Elsa’s. The depulping of the coffee (separating the bean from the cherry) is done manually using a small machine with a handle that is turned by hand to push the coffee between two rollers.

In Honduras I visited a couple of farmers who produced high-quality coffee at their own homes rather than via the co-op. Their equipment was superior to the mish-mash of rudimentary and improvised equipment I saw here.

Our third and final visit was to see Daniel Castillo, a ‘microlot’ seller. Microlot coffee tends to be produced in small quantities but is high quality and typically gets a higher price, often higher than fair trade. We spent the most time here and took a walk along the road to his finca.

Daniel, an older but genial man dressed in short-sleeved shirt, casual trousers and sandals, walked us up a short track to get to his plot, which is about one hectare (a typical size for millions of smallholder coffee producers throughout the world). He produces organic coffee, though it is not yet Fair Trade certified. His coffee is ‘shade grown’ under a diverse range of other trees and plants, such as yucca, banana and citrus. Daniel has 3,000 coffee bushes.

Roger explained that Daniel gets his coffee to a higher quality after the harvest, when he is able to take extra care with hand processing techniques. The coffee is dried on small, elevated beds rather than directly on the cement patio. This allows for better air circulation to improve the drying process.

We sampled a couple of seed-filled oranges before heading back to Daniel’s house and then back on the small bus to Loja. We discussed fair trade. Of the seven co-ops within the FAPECAFES umbrella,only this one, APECAEL, is not certified fair trade. They were currently underway with licensing process for certification. It’s a process requiring significant preparation and then approval by the co-op membership and it would take several more months at least.

Roger does support fair trade but had reservations about whether it was worthwhile. Different fair trade labels exist with different criteria and license costs so he wasn’t sure which one would be best for the producers. However, he expected the co-op membership to grow in future and the evidence was already there in the other six co-ops within the FAPECAFES umbrella.

My visits to coffee producers throughout Central America had exposed me to the realities many producers face in their day-to-day lives, whether or not they are fair trade producers. I was able to see the complexities involved and the hard decisions needed in how best to improve the lives of them, their families and communities. For the producers here in Loja, it looked like fair trade was still the best option. However, unlike many other producers I’d visited, they seemed to have other options based on their ability to produce high quality coffee, which attracted good prices. The families in Roger’s co-op could benefit from the experiences of the other co-ops.

However, the producers were worried about whether it is worth the cost. The most well-known certification (FLO, the blue-green and black label which is the most common) has a higher cost. In response to this, over the last several years another certification is being introduced that was created in Latin America, for Latin Americans (the Small Producer symbol, SPP). It is still little-known, but it is important. For many consumers, they feel it is enough to simply buy a product with the fair trade symbol. Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that, and my hope is that fair trade continues to evolve with the interests of the producers at its heart. The main thing is to support it as best you can.

In individual cases fair trade may not be the best option. One year of high prices may be great for producers. But in coffee (and other commodities) the price fluctuations can play havoc in producer communities. Over the long-term, fair trade still offers a positive path towards a sustainable means of living for the people in these communities.

But there are still risks. For the producers of APECAEL, they will pay out the costs of obtaining a fair trade price without the guarantee they will be able to sell all their coffee at fair trade prices. For them, for now, it’s still a risk worth taking. It is up to us to make sure that the risk pays off.

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CO-OP INFO:
-in its current form since 2008; FAPECAFES formed in 2002
-APECAEL comprises five communities with 122 producer members. The seven co-ops total 1,700 producers and the other six are certified fair trade
-The co-op is currently in process of applying for certification so they apply fair trade and organic principles ahead of this

Ethical tea? A brief lowdown

I visited many fair trade co-ops and producers on my trip. They were producers of coffee, cacao, fruit, quinoa, cotton, flowers, to name a few. But the world’s most popular drink – tea – was one that never came near my radar. Very little tea is produced in Central and South America. Being such a popular drink, even outdoing coffee, it has a large cultural, economic and social impact on people throughout the world. From it’s origins in China, through colonisation and oppression in bringing it to the West, flashpoints in popular history (the Boston Tea Party), tea has shaped the lives of millions.

I bring this up because of the some myths and half-truths that recently came to light for me were dispelled when I read a detailed and enlightening report into the tea industry conducted by the UK non-profit organisation Ethical Consumer (learn more here).

Poor wages and working conditions remain the stand-out problem in the industry. Tea monoculture has an impact on biodiversity and has increased the need for pesticides. The most lucrative stages in tea processing – blending, packaging and marketing – are mainly carried out by tea brands in buyer countries, which continues to leave tea farmers and workers in the most vulnerable position.

Four corporations dominate global tea trade, the top two being Unilever (Lipton, PG Tips) and Tata Tea (Tetley). Little of the profit included in the retail price of a box of tea goes to the producing country e.g. for a GBP1.60 box of tea bags sold in the UK a tea picker will make just 1 pence. According to an Oxfam investigation, pickers in Assam, India receive only $1.60/day, half the legal minimum wage. Families struggle to support themselves; children become vulnerable to human trafficking.

Ethical Certification?
Various labels now adorn boxes and packets of tea in our shops (see examples below). Unfortunately, the same report highlighted that neither Fairtrade nor Rainforest Alliance certification resulted in higher wages in these large-scale plantations. Fairtrade certification alone has limited power to bring about wage increases, as they are usually decided at a regional or national level. Fairtrade did bring other benefits, though, such as proper contracts, better working conditions and a social premium for the local community.

Rainforest Alliance is a relatively new certification (2006) but has spread quickly due to deals with multinationals Unilever and Lipton. Its rapid rise is arguably due to it being a more ‘business-friendly’ ethical label (similar for the UTZ label). Rainforest Alliance focuses on how farms are managed, which is in stark contrast to Fairtrade and its emphasis of minimum prices and shofting the terms of trade more toward producers.

Muddy waters
No, not the famous blues musician. Rainforest Alliance and UTZ now muddy the waters of ethical labelling. On the surface it sounds laudable yet in reality they are too vague. Fairtrade and organic standards are stringent, clear and measurable. Fairtrade certainly has flaws, but not to the extent of Rainforest Alliance.

Another consequence of the proliferation of Rainforest Alliance certification and sales is that it takes away from the Fairtrade and organic certified farms. One of the reasons why so little Fairtrade certified tea is sold at Fairtrade prices is because of the rush to support competing labels by the multinationals.
Only 6% of fairtrade tea is sold at fairtrade tea prices due to lack of demand.

Are you confused yet?
Can you tell the difference between different ethical labels? Is there a real difference and does it matter?
Similar claims are made by these competing labels. And they have many common objectives that are hard to disagree with in principle. However, some objectives are hard to measure.

With Rainforest Alliance being applied on such large-scale farms and estates, auditing them properly is also a problem. One such estate investigated in 2011 by Oxfam was 75km long and employed 16,000 workers.

What to do?
Despite some concnerns over what Fairtrade can deliver, it is still the best overall option for ethical purchasing. Rainforest Alliance or UTZ tea would be preferable to non-certified tea, but it is ‘buyer beware’. Many people have a certain sense of a feel-good factor when buying ethical products. But the key is to be aware of the certification (even Fairtrade) and particularly with Rainforest Alliance, realise that it is a very flawed label.

There are also some other ways in which you can make a positive contribution to those workers. These include:
-buying direct sourced tea
-buying single origin, not blends
-buying loose leaf tea rather than tea bags

Ethical labels you might see:

At A Glance – label summary:
Fairtrade: aims to reduce poverty, integrate sustainable development and for tea farms and estates, promote sustainable management
Organic: strict criteria on wildlife and the environment
Rainforest Alliance: Promote better management of tea farms and estates through environmental, social and economic criteria, with focus on environmental criteria. Only 30% of the tea needs to meet the standards in order to gain certification
UTZ: like Rainforest Alliance, focus on better management of farms and estates