Quit Coffee, Save the Planet?

How fitting that after I write about Fair Trade's environmental benefits, I find this TreeHugger article: Quitting Coffee is One of the Easiest Ways to Help the Planet and Yourself. Author, Trevor Reichman writes:

Coffee is the 2nd most traded commodity after oil. Some claim that coffee has health benefits while others claim that it is an addictive substance that taxes the body’s adrenal glands, depositing adrenaline daily into our bodies, and taking tolls on our bodies in other ways. Whatever you believe, coffee is not essential to our lives and thus it is one commodity worth considering giving up entirely in order to benefit the planet and our pocketbooks in a time of economic and ecologic peril.

The Coffee bean is a comfort commodity which requires the removal of established natural areas, as well as intensive energy requirements to plant, harvest, and transport it to seasonally addicted consumers, like myself.

I know it's his opinion, but there are so many holes in his argument, it's hard to begin. (I'm not the only one who disagrees with him, read the long string of comments) First of all, Trevor's claims of coffee's environmental degradation only refers to the full-sun plantations. He does not mention how Fair Trade coffee, which is shade-grown and nurtures biodiversity, actually solves that problem -- basically what I wrote in this post.

Times are tough and the economic crisis that we are all dealing with is hurting people's pocket books, but for small farmers everywhere, crisis, whether it be economic, ecological or the coffee crisis [good synthesis at GreenLAGirl blog] they faced in years past or the food crisis the world is currently facing, the concept of Fair Trade has been there to offer a solution. Not a quick fix to end it all, but the opening up of dialogue toward the solution. By quitting coffee, as Trevor suggests we do, these crises won't end but will mostly likely offer more problems.

This brings the Fair Trade movement to a discussion of how Fair Trade can fare in the face of this 'economic meltdown'. Many within the movement, notably Equal Exchange have been vocal in advocating for the work that cooperatives can do to fair up the economy and transform the system. Working with the people and for the people should be a new step toward changing the global economy because the way business has been done is not working. So, by cutting ties with these small farmers who provide coffee will just continue to exacerbate the problem and surely will not make the problem go away.

[image: fairtradenorfolk.org.uk / photo: coopcoffees.com]