Conscious Choice: Can the Coffee

October 2005 | Choice Feedback

Can the Coffee

Your Statement of Purpose begins: C.C. serves as a resource to help readers live healthier lives …. Well, I’ve got news for you: Coffee contains large amounts of caffeine, which is an addictive drug. Few people drink coffee only occasionally as a treat that they “like.” Many people drink coffee every day because they are addicted to it. Just because it takes place in nifty, clean, upscale little Starbucks doesn’t make it any less of an addiction than the ones played out on dirty mattresses in some West Side “shooting gallery.” What’s next — an article on free-trade heroin? Or tobacco?

Aside from the addiction issue, what about the physical health effects of drinking coffee every day? I’d think a magazine that wants to help people live healthier lives would publish articles digging into the evidence of the damage coffee addiction does to the human body, like the acidity that goes into your blood, for starters.

Not to mention that perhaps the poor farmers you mention in the articles would actually be better off growing food for themselves and their country as they used to before they were invaded and forced to grow coffee for export! I know the fair trade thing sounds like a good thing done by nice people who want to help poor farmers, but in reality it’s just another part of a huge, unhealthy drug delivery system. Please write about that instead.

— Lon Withers, Internet

In Fairness to Fair Trade

THANK YOU for your article on Fair Trade coffee! After living for years on Fair Trade coffee cooperatives, I deeply appreciate your efforts to raise awareness and consumption.

However, I have some concerns about the way Fair Trade was represented. Geoff Watts may believe that “[Fair Trade Certification] doesn’t address quality issues and has a limited scope in regard to environmental concerns,” but my experience and recent research argues to the contrary. Fair Trade standards dictate long-term relationships between buyers and cooperatives and intense technical assistance, both of which significantly raise quality and allow buyers to develop their desired flavor profiles. Fair Trade coffee is widely regarded as the highest quality coffee available, and when buyers pay living wages that are well above the NYSEC price, it ensures that they receive the best of the cooperative’s green coffee beans.

In terms of environmental protection, Fair Trade has a long history of environmental sustainability. Chris Bacon, a researcher from University of California, recently published research outlining the important effects Fair Trade certification has had on the Nicaraguan environment. It is also important to note that when cooperatives earn more money, they can afford the expensive transition to organic production and are able to pay for certification.

After working with workers on cooperatives and plantations alike in Brazil, I know there is something wrong with buying from large farms. Not only are companies “paying one guy to support a lot of people,” they are concentrating power with land owners, increasing the vulnerability of workers, and reinforcing a historical system of oppression and disempowerment.

Understanding Fair Trade as nothing more than a “price support mechanism” oversimplifies the movement to the point of misrepresenting it. At its core, Fair Trade is not just about the significantly higher prices paid; it is about empowerment. Fair Trade shifts power from northern corporations to traditionally exploited campesinos. Small farmers participate in democratic cooperatives, have power to decide whom to sell to and for how much, and they decide where to invest the community investment premium in their own community. Rather than accepting ear-marked donations, Fair Trade cooperatives use the money they earn to make decisions about community development — they become the agents for sustainable change, not the recipients of charity.

Fair Trade is more than a consumer’s option; it is a powerful movement. It is about working in solidarity with producer communities, listening deeply to their experiences, and moving forward collaboratively to build an alternative economic structure based on dignity and sustainability.

— Joe Curnow, United Students for Fair Trade, Chicago

Choose to Eat Veggies

I WAS FLABBERGASTED when I read “Leftovers Again?” by D.A. Guiliani in the August 2005 issue of Conscious Choice! She claims to be a Buddhist but starts the essay talking about her diet of broiler chickens?! Come on, lady! The first rule of Buddhism is: “Do not harm.” She goes on to list the many negative effects of over-consumption in our country. True, but does she realize that agribusiness and meat production deprive many, many more people of a meal than not eating leftovers? Half of all the water in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food.

I am all for recycling, but I believe that one of the most important things you can do to help the planet and improve the life of yourself and those around you is to adopt a vegetarian diet. That is the choice that will indeed benefit, to the largest extent, the impact our individual, daily choices can have for real and lasting positive change. Visit Goveg.com.

— Teresa Chiletz, Joliet, Ill.

Sales Reps Must Have Wings

I ENJOY your magazine (which I pick up at Outpost Natural Foods Co-op in Wauwatosa, Wis.).

I wanted to comment on something I find sadly amusing in your August issue. In your ad for the advertising account executive position, you describe the magazine as giving voice “to our readers’ increasing interest in human health, spirituality, social justice and the environment” (emphasis mine). What I find ironic is the last line of the paragraph: “You must have a car.”

Thanks, however, for a great publication. I wish I could attend some of the Chicago events listed in the issue.

— Elaine K. Ritzka, Milwaukee, Wis.

Editor’s Note: Oops! We meant to say you must have a hybrid car. OK, that’s not really a qualification, but our top sales rep and local board member both drive hybrids, and many of our staffers take public transit or bike to work.

Whistleblower Speaks Out

I JOINED the “ranks” of whistleblowers on December 2, 2003, when a major newspaper printed a story in which I confirmed for them what many of us already knew — we, the members of the United States Park Police, could no longer provide the level of service that citizens and visitors had grown to expect in our parks and on our parkways in Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco. The world changed for all of us on September 11, 2001, and the expectations of police agencies across the country grew exponentially overnight. As the Chief of the United States Park Police, an organization responsible for the safety and security of some of America’s most valued and recognizable symbols of freedom — including such notable sites as the Washington Monument, the Statue of Liberty, and the Golden Gate Bridge area — I knew it was my duty, as chiefs of police across the country do every day, to inform the community of the realities of the situation.

For being candid — for being “honest” — while still being supportive of my superiors, I was, without warning, stripped of my law enforcement authority, badge, and firearm, and escorted from the Department of the Interior by armed special agents of another federal law enforcement entity in December of 2003. Seven months later, the Department of the Interior terminated me.

My story is told at the website honestchief.com.

Suppression of information is spreading. In agencies that span federal service, conscientious public servants are struggling to communicate vital concerns to their true employers — the American public. Is anyone listening?

— Teresa Chambers

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