A spokesman said that 97 per cent of its coffee was bought for $1
A spokesman said that 97 per cent of its coffee was bought for $1.20 per pound Last year, the open market price fell to 55 cents a pound. The company also said that last year it bought 3.1 million kilos of fair trade coffee, double the amount bought the previous year.Caffe?ero says it buys directly from the producers, paying more than the open market price, but has no plans to change to fair trade at the moment.But if the Fair Trade movement does take off, Oxfam is not worried about the bigger companies pushing them out of the market by copying their idea. “The reason there are so few co-ops is that, during the 1970s and 1980s, the government put a lot of pressure on farmers to remain out of co-operatives,” says Mr Navarro. “It told them that co-ops led to revolution and were basically a communist idea.
In Nicaragua, the neighbouring country, a lot of the revolution was based around the idea of promoting co-ops. The farmers believed the propaganda and stayed with what they knew. This idea is gradually changing.”There are 12 co-ops affiliated to the Progreso movement, representing 120,000 farmers. Only three of those co-ops will supply the coffee but all 12 will profit from the company.
As the chain grows, more of the co-ops will be called on to supply beans.”When Fair Trade began, everyone said … it couldn’t work, but it has been very successful,” says Mr Navarro.Of the UK’s biggest chains, Costa caf?offer fair trade coffee if you ask for it. A spokesman said the company would be keeping a close eye on Progreso. “We are keeping the whole issue of fair trade coffee, and whether we would move over to it completely, under consideration,” he said.Starbucks insists that it pays a fair price for its coffee. “We want to show people that they can have a decent cup of coffee that is organic and fair trade for perhaps only 10p more than they would have to pay in the big coffee chains. (A regular latte or cappuccino is £1.90 at Progreso and a single espresso costs £1.20.) “We want to show the world that you can do business in a sustainable way, make good money and get everyone to follow suit.”In Honduras, there are around 120,000 farmers of whom only around 10,000 are members of Fair Trade co-ops.
