Free trade is fine. When you have oppression, then it’s ugly. for
instance, coffee growers are often paid next to nothing, while th
econsumer in the West pays high proces for the beans. Who’s to
blame???

Often, people blame the “giant, western corperations”, that refuse to
pay fair prices. Well, they’re only part to blame. In South america,
many of the local growers dont’ sell to large companies, they sell to local
dealers, who have a monopoly on the local sales. they force the
growers to sell them at too-low prices. In turn , they sell to the Western
companies at low prices.

The companies are nto doign anything “bad” directly, but they enable the
process by buying. If they don’t buy, they go out of buisness.

The real problem are the corrupt dealers that price fix the cost of
coffee. Corrupt governemnts in these countries don’t help, and the
buying companies have NO financial reason to do anything… so the
poor farmers lose out.

some companies realize the problem, and are now making a killing on
fair trade coffee. Ironically, these coffees that pay the farmers fair prices
are considered premium, and ends up being more profitable than the
cheap stuff! So, the market, supply and demand, etc. has made it
MORE profitable for retailers and coffee companies in the US to deal in
fair trade coffee. Of course, the majority of their profits come from the
cheap stuff that takes advantade of poor growers situations, but that’ll
change. Have faith in the market.