If you’re like 90 percent of ASUCLA coffee consumers, your cup runneth over with exploitation.
On your way to class you stop at Kerckhoff Coffeehouse to purchase your daily house coffee. As you sip your joe you fail to notice that it tastes of the sweat of impoverished farmers who have made less profit than their production costs.
You ignore that the steam reeks of poisonous insecticides and pesticides, used to beat back indigenous forestation and life where the coffee grows, in order to yield more coffee for less cost. You overlook the fact that the change you mindlessly put back into your pocket is just the amount of money needed to feed the family whose product you’re consuming. Your coffee may be waking you up, but you’re still asleep to these java injustices. There’s a fairer cup available. But students aren’t buying it and ASUCLA employees aren’t effectively promoting it.
Back in 2000, the UCLA Environmental Coalition put pressure on UCLA Restaurants to provide Fair Trade Certified options to students. Fair Trade organizations establish fair prices through an open dialog with producers, giving coffee farmers a minimum of $1.26 per pound, which is enough to support their families.
These organizations encourage environmentally responsible and organic cultivation methods, which protect jungle diversity and delicate ecosystems. And the extra money respects children’s rights, allowing them to continue schooling instead of forcing them drop out in order to help support their families. With these talking points on their side, the Environmental Coalition succeeded in bringing a Fair Trade coffee blend to ASUCLA coffee shops in 2001.
Fair Trade functions through a market-based approach. This means that the support of Fair Trade practices comes from consumers, like you, purchasing Fair Trade products. If you don’t buy Fair Trade, marginalized farmers will continue to be treated unfairly.
Since Fair Trade’s debut on campus, UCLA Restaurants have continued adding new Fair Trade Certified options to the menus at ASUCLA coffee shops. In addition to the original Fair Trade French roast offered, ASUCLA stores now carry light roast drip coffee, espresso, chocolate and raw sugar ““ all Fair Trade Certified.
Yet even with the agreeable standards and ASUCLA’s attempt to promote its sale, Fair Trade coffee has consistently accounted for only about 10 percent of all drip coffee sales, and even less for espresso sales. The ASUCLA coffee shops, in collaboration with the student group E3 ““ Ecology, Economy, Equity ““ offered a 25-cent promotional discount on Fair Trade coffee for a week in January in attempts to increase its popularity, according to Cindy Bolton, Director of Food Operations for UCLA Restaurants.
“Unfortunately we didn’t see any increase,” Bolton said.
And frankly, even as a supporter of Fair Trade, I wasn’t aware of this promotion at the time.
While I believe that a lack of visibility is responsible for Fair Trade’s failure on campus, Bolton believes that “people are much more educated on the concept now than they were when we started.” She said that she thinks, rather than having education or exposure be the problem, “people are making the choice based on price.” Yet even she admitted that the price difference is “minimal,” adding only nine, 18 and 22 cents respectively to the cost of a small-, medium- and large-sized drip coffee. With such a negligible price difference and such tremendous positive pay-off, why is Fair Trade coffee so unpopular on campus?
Discovering that UC San Diego currently has six on-campus coffee shops offering 100 percent Fair Trade coffee left me steaming with envy. UC Berkeley has four cafes that exclusively brew Fair Trade drip coffee with a Fair Trade espresso option.
Is it too much to ask to have one such cafe on UCLA’s campus? Obviously not, if other UC campuses can offer it.
But we, the consumers, must show our support and desire to make UCLA a Fair Trade campus.
Supporting Fair Trade is as easy as ordering it, given you can remember to order Fair Trade on top of all of your other drink specifications. It would be even easier if ASUCLA employees would ask people if they want Fair Trade coffee instead of regular coffee, or post prominent signs advertising it. Confronting people with the choice would surely amass more support for the cause.
Another option is to eliminate the choice. If UCLA were to offer only Fair Trade coffee, who would truly be outraged enough to march into Westwood to get their java jolt? At Starbucks, a small-sized coffee is $1.60, a medium-sized is $1.85 and a large-sized is $1.95. Comparably sized cups of Fair Trade coffee from Kerckhoff run $1.39, $2.03, and $2.27, respectively. Not much of a difference, and the on-campus coffee is much more conveniently located.
However, UCLA Restaurants are reluctant to make the change to 100 percent Fair Trade compliance.
“Even if (the Fair Trade program) were to grow to 50 percent, we would still offer both (types of coffee),” Bolton said.
So the choice, consumers, is yours. You can have your regular immoral mocha every morning, if you’ll miss those extra few cents. Or you can wake up and turn your loose change into social change.
E-mail nhein@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.