By choosing organic free trade coffee, you’re supporting farmers committed to environmental stewardship and human rights – your choice has the power to create positive change across the board. Safeway offers a selection of sustainable and fair trade beans that taste delicious while simultaneously making an impactful statement about environmental sustainability and social responsibility.

Fair trade is an international trading partnership designed to empower producers and enhance their livelihoods by offering them a stable minimum price, access to credit and the chance for long-term relationships between buyers and sellers. Furthermore, fair trade encourages an environmentally sustainable farming method which protects soil health while simultaneously decreasing chemical usage.

Coffee is one of the world’s most traded commodities and produced primarily by small-scale farmers who often go unpaid or underpaid for their hard work, their wages not reflecting its true worth; on average, Kenyan family farmers earning less than $2 per day from producing coffee (KNCU).

At least, that’s what church justice and outreach committees that have championed fair trade for over three decades have concluded: only two percent of coffee sold in Canada is Fair Trade certified despite all of its successes and support from faith organizations, worker cooperatives, Ten Thousand Villages and Bridgehead Coffee.

Though fair trade labels provide an effective basis for transformation of markets, they alone cannot suffice. Establishing an effective fair trade model requires collaboration from consumers as well as business partners alike.

At this juncture in the market, coffee production must take on a more holistic approach that encompasses every step, from farming to consumption. Fair Trade certification is one way of doing this as it only certifies organizations and co-ops that prioritize environmental stewardship while paying living wages to their workers.

Other initiatives, like the Coffee and Farmer Equity initiative, are also steps in the right direction; however, since multiple parties are involved with little outside regulation to keep everyone honest, such initiatives may become more of a race to the bottom than an effective pathway forward.