Coffee: If it doesn’t have the label it ain’t Fairtrade.

In the early 1990s things got really bad for coffee growers. Market prices rock-bottomed for the bean. It cost more to grow than the market would pay.Growers pulled their children out of school to work, forests were cleared to put in more coffee trees and labourers lost their jobs. That’s where The Fairtrade Foundation, a non-profit organisation set up in 1992 by groups including Oxfam, jumped in.The aim was to ensure that Third World farmers got a fair deal when trading with richer countries.Coffee is a major concern to Fairtrade mainly because it’s the poorer people and their families who grow it and the wealthier who drink it. Now the Fairtrade Foundation has arrived in Australia. Dylan Tromp, fairtrade manager at Jasper Coffee explains: “Oxfam chose coffee as the product that Fairtrade could make the biggest difference with in the short term. In the whole coffee production chain the people who work the hardest, the growers, are getting paid the least. They’re only making about two cents a cup, it’s crap!” he says.”Fairtrade looks after the growers by setting the price higher and deciding it in advance,” says Tromp. The contracts are longer too. Fairtrade also agrees the quantity before the coffee is even grown. So the growers have the security of knowing they are going to have money coming in.Fairtrade has a few strict rules for growers too. Women have to be paid equivalent wages for equivalent work and a ban on children being used are among the requirements. Plus the money has to go back to a fund in the community which makes decisions that they will all benefit from.Jasper Coffee became Victoria’s first licensed Fairtrade roaster in 2003. and paved the way for Fairtrade coffee in Australia. Tromp says. “We wanted to do it because we have a history of making ethical business choices. We had no idea if Fairtrade had market potential. It”s not a small commitment for a company to make but we went for it. I think Australians for the most part are quite interested in making some kind of contribution to the world.”All Fairtrade products are marked with the Fairtrade label. If it doesn’t have the label it ain’t Fairtrade.