It was another dreary Monday morning, one that truly necessitated a hot cup of wake-me-up coffee. I stumbled sleepily into Kerckhoff Coffeehouse.
Bleary-eyed, I found it difficult to locate the fair-trade section of the menu. I finally found the fair-trade coffee options, placed obscurely like an afterthought beneath the regular house-coffee choices.
Our university needs to establish fair-trade coffee as the only option in all of our coffeehouses on campus. Our university should set the precedent for fair-trade implementation and practice.
The fair-trade movement advocates fair standards of labor, maintaining that the free-market system injures agriculture laborers who receive less than living wages for the commodities they produce. By providing an above-market price to farmers for their products, fair-trade policies stop the cycles of debt and unfair labor practices, improving the living conditions of farmers in developing countries. Farmers, organized into cooperatives, can then collectively ensure fundamental needs for their communities, such as access to clean water as well as the development of education and sustainable environmental programs.
Already, students recognize the importance of fair trade and the clear and practical role UCLA can play in implementing such policies. Fair-trade coffee is the only option in all the dining halls . And in February, Associated Students UCLA collaborated with student organizations E3: Ecology, Economy, Equity and the Social Justice Alliance during their Fair Trade Week. To improve the visibility of this option, ASUCLA gave a 25 percent-off discount on fair-trade coffee during Tuesday and Wednesday of that week. It’s clear from the data that those two discounted days instigated a significant trend of consciousness about this option, which carried on after the promotion.
Before the promotion, 10.08 percent of all drip was fair-trade coffee in Jimmy’s Coffeehouse. During the promotion, the percentage jumped to 23.96 percent, and a week after the promotion, the percentage of fair-trade drip leveled at 14.44 percent. The statistics by ASUCLA prove that the fair-trade option is met with enthusiasm and success by students.
By passing a resolution to promote fair-trade coffee, Undergraduate Students Association Council also supported a more widespread, regular and available option of fair-trade coffee at UCLA. Implementing fair-trade coffee as the default option at campus coffee shops could increase UCLA’s level of social responsibility.
Fourth-year political science student and Social Justice Alliance member Rahim Kurwa states that “fair trade is an option students strongly support. UCLA should use its purchasing power as a means to promote socially responsible practices wherever possible.”
It was students who brought fair trade on our campus in the first place. In 2001, after a 10-month effort, the student-led Environmental Coalition succeeded in implementing the fair-trade option at coffee shops all over UCLA. The UCLA community needs to be willing to pay extra for coffee bought under a fairer trading system that gives farmers in developing nations more earnings per pound of coffee.
UC San Diego, UC Santa Cruz and UC Berkeley have all taken significant steps to improve access to fair-trade products in coffee shops and dining halls. The Free Speech Movement Cafe at UC Berkeley is actually an all-organic, completely fair-trade coffeehouse. The menu is a representation of just trade practices, environmental sustainability and human rights, ideals that UCLA, too, should adopt.It must be realized that fair-trade coffee can become the default option at all ASUCLA campus coffeehouses. It only costs a few cents more and tastes just the same, if not better, than regular house coffee. I don’t know about you, but drinking in the sweat and hard work of unfairly treated laborers from developing countries is hardly appealing to me.
We need to go beyond making fair-trade coffee just available. This option needs to be the top choice, the preferred choice and the normal and unquestioned choice on our campus.
Adopting fair-trade coffee as the standard at UCLA will help pave the way for expansion of fair-trade options in other products and types of food. We can control the consumption and consequently affect the moral direction on our campus.
E-mail Do at namgiaodo@ucla.edu if you want to drink coffee and promote fairer trade practices at the same time. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.