Sir, - A frothy little article, "The Coffee Question" (Weekend, March 27th), invites a response. In part, the article was a review of a coffee-table book, Coffee: A Gourmet's Guide by Mary Banks, and in part it was a personal odyssey by the author, Lance Contrucci, through some of the coffee shops of Dublin. Each to his own odyssey. However, your readers might like to consider two others: the odyssey of the people who actually grow coffee - and a less onerous one about what people in Ireland can do about it.
After oil, coffee is the world's most valuable traded commodity and we drink about 1.5 billion cups every year in Ireland. Most coffee is grown by small farmers in Third World countries; around 7 million Third World farmers depend on it as their only source of a cash income.
Some of the problems facing small coffee farmers include:
- an international trading system that endures that coffee processing, which adds value, is done in rich importing countries;
- local middle men, called coyotes in Latin America, who are often local money-lenders as well, and who are able to buy coffee at prices that don't even cover the cost of production;
- coffee speculators on markets in London and New York where 90 per cent of coffee deals don't actually involve the exchange of any real coffee;
- the concentration of the coffee business in the hands of some half-a-dozen multinational food companies and roasters which buy more than two-thirds of coffee exports;
- the weather (El Nino, Hurricane Mitch).
With an independent consumer guarantee, the Fairtrade Mark, it is now possible for any of us to take a coffee odyssey that involves justice for producers in the Third World.
For example, we could start at the James Joyce Centre in North Great George's Street for a cup of Bewley's Direct, a Fair-trade Mark coffee bought from small coffee farmers' co-operatives in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. Then we could amble out to All Hallows College, Drumcondra, and try a cup of Robert Roberts Fair Trade, which comes from a co-operative in Costa Rica. Coming back into town we could have lunch in Trinity College where the college catering authorities recently decided all of its coffee will have a Fair-trade Mark. And in the evening we could have an after dinner Fair-trade Mark coffee in Poco Loco Restaurant, Parliament Street, before dropping into Whelan's bar in Wexford Street on our way home for a cup of either Bewley's Direct or cafe; direct.
The Fair-trade Mark is awarded to products that are bought on internationally agreed fair trade terms. The coffee farmers get a guaranteed minimum price - which has been as much as twice the world market price - as well as a premium which they can use for community development projects like building schools.
All the main supermarkets in Ireland have indicated their support, so if the products are not on the shelves all individual consumers have to do is to ask the managers to stock them.
Most coffees give you a lift. Some also restore pride and renew hope. The Fair-trade Mark is supported by all the main Third World charities in Ireland. - Yours, etc., Peter Gaynor,
Irish Fair Trade Network, Lower Camden Street, Dublin 2.