Drinking coffee isn’t just part of waking up, it is making a difference in the lives of families and children around the World.

Next time you wake up with coffee beans on your mind, or your thinking about stopping for a quick latte, think about this: Over 50% of the world’s coffee is grown by small family farms, with millions of workers employed on coffee plantations and estates, and plantation workers being treated unfairly, given low wages, and working in unhealthy toxic conditions without housing, water or even healthcare. Additionally, the owners of these farms and estates are only receiving a mere 2% to 4% of the retail price, leaving the farmers in deep poverty and horrible debt. Not only is coffee the second largest commodity behind oil, it is the third biggest user of pesticides behind cotton & tobacco.

So what if just by buying your morning cup of coffee you could be helping Third World children get healthy and educated? Or you could save parrots, toucans and other species from extinction?

If your answer is yes, then start buying fair trade coffee, today! You will be helping over 550,000 farmers from countries like Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Africa and Mexico, and you will also be tasting some of the richest, tastiest, Organic pesticide-free drinks that will blow your mind. Reason being is that Fair Trade vendors are usually Organic, encouraged to adopt sustainable practices, and using fat, ripe fruits that create amazing, robust beautiful brews. Conventional gourmet coffee companies also use rich ripe fruit, but they don’t cut out pesticides & chemicals, and the conditions in which their coffee was produced was more than likely very poor and unhealthy. Here are some more reasons to by Fair Trade coffee:

• Since coffee is grown in shaded areas, large conventional plantations have to clear-cut the native environments in order to grow in easy-to-harvest rows. This means deforestation, chemicals and the destruction of the habitats of plant and animal habitats.
• The large plantations have increased their coffee products so much that the price of coffee has plummeted. The result has been disastrous for small family farms, which in the past had traditionally grown the worlds coffee supply. This has destroyed many families in places like Mexico and Ecuador forcing them to leave their farms because they can no longer make a living.
• Fair Trade enables the cooperatives to cut out the middlemen and sell their Organic, tasty coffee directly to US importers at fair prices for everyone, enabling thousands of families to live happy, healthy lives.

As Conscious Coffee Consumers we MUST demand Organic, Fair Trade Coffee!

There are unethical companies that utilize the Fair Trade movement and its certifying agencies to market themselves even though they are not legitimetly Fair Trade. These companies use verbiage such as “fairly traded” to give the impression that they participate in the Fair Trade system when in reality they do not. They are not paying Fair Trade prices, they have not registered with a certifying agency and there is no third-party audit trail for their transactions.

If a coffee company is suggesting they are ‘Fair trade’ without displaying the Fair Trade logo (See logo pictures below), if it is based in the USA yet not listed as a licensee by TransFair USA , then you should think twice before buying that product!

“Coffee plays a crucial role in the livelihoods of millions of rural households in the developing world. Small-scale family farmers produce over 75% of the world’s coffee. Market volatility and declining terms of trade, along with inadequate access to infrastructure, financial resources, and market information, put sustainable livelihoods out of reach for millions of rural families. The coffee market continues to be a showcase of the need to address the commodity crisis on a global scale, a crisis that is hampering the development of many countries. This is directly linked to the global interest in wider peace and stability.”

--Oxfam America

"Sustainable coffee is produced on a farm with high biological diversity and low chemical inputs. It conserves resources, protects the environment, produces efficiently, competes commercially and enhances the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole."
-- Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, First Sustainable Coffee Congress overview paper

According to 2005 data from the National Coffee Association (NCA), 80 percent of Americans drink coffee occasionally, while 53 percent drink it daily. America’s 236 million coffee consumers spent an estimated $19 billion on the beverage in 2004, or $80.50 per person. Coffee accounts for 91 percent of the U.S. hot drink market by volume and 76 percent by value, according to the market research firm Euromonitor International. Think of the difference we could make if everyone started buying Fair Trade Coffee!

Check out this Crop to Cup Brochure that shows the Fair Trade Coffee Route vs. the Conventional Coffee Route, it really puts it all into perspective.

Here is a list of all the Conscious Coffee Companys I recommend because I have tried them and support what they stand for.