Fair Trade Coffee in Demand With University of Michigan Students

April 20, 2008 - Coffee and caffeine have always been synonymous with one another. However, coffee and fair trade...well, let's just say they don't always go hand in hand with one another. However, with a growing global consumer culture, not to mention an increasingly health conscious and holistically minded culture, Fair Trade coffee is becoming more of the norm for eco coffee drinkers and purveyors of social and economic justice.

Just take a look at University of Michigan, where students have recently started a Fair Trade campaign to get more campus stores and the on-campus dining facility to offer fair trade coffee across the board. Most particularly, the UMass Fair Trade campaign is aiming to get fair trade coffee exclusively in the dining commons, where the students have more say. As of now, there is only one Fair Trade blend offered, and some students want to make that the only option for all coffee served in the dining commons.

Obviously, there is a ways to go in getting more Fair Trade certified coffee into all ten University of Massachusetts campus locales that sell coffee to begin with. Apparently, the general sentiment on campus is a lack of education regarding Fair Trade certified products and the whole concept of fair trade. Many students know something about it, but not enough to inform and guide their consumer purchasing power.

If they did, they would surely go out of their way to find the Fair Trade stuff. But then again, wouldn't making fair trade coffee more accessible be an even more surefire solution to getting more students to buy fair trade certified coffee? The UMass Fair Trade Campaign thinks so.

If you are interested in purchasing Fair Trade Certified Coffee, may we recommend Herb Trader. They offer a wide selection of various brands certified by TransFair USA, including Equal Exchange coffee, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Celestial Seasonings.

About Fair Trade

For anybody not familiar with what fair trade stands for, it is essentially a market-based model of international trade that empowers farmers and workers in impoverished and developing nations to compete in a global marketplace, while bettering their way of life and environment. According to the only independent, third party nonprofit certifier of Fair Trade products in the U.S, TransFair, fair trade certified products like coffee, tea, herbs, chocolate, honey, rice, flowers and cotton, help ensure fair and safe labor conditions for workers (child labor is strictly prohibited), support community development projects that fair trade certified farmers invest in, and promote environmental sustainability (no use of GMO's, limited agrochemicals and increased soil fertility). In other words, fair trade means a whole lot more than fair business.

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