The future of Fair Trade coffee: dilemmas facing Latin America’s small-scale producers

This study explores some of the dilemmas facing the Fair Trade movement as it seeks to broaden and deepen its impact among the rural poor of Latin America’s coffee sector. It argues that the efforts to broaden Fair Trade’s economic impact among poor, small-scale producers are creating challenges for deepening the political impact of a movement that is based on social justice and environmental sustainability. The study is based on two years’ research and seven case studies of Mexican and Central American small scale farmer cooperatives producing coffee for the Fair Trade market.The study identifies a number of dilemmas facing Fair Trade coffee producers in Latin America:as the number of qualified Fair Trade producers already exceeds those actually selling their coffee in the Fair Trade market and thus benefiting from this initiative, growth in the European market appears to have slowed considerablyuneven levels of quality continue to present a challengeif the benefits of Fair Trade are to be realised by a larger number of people in Latin America, steps need to be taken to increase participation in this alternative trade networkthe landscape of Fair Trade and other marketing and labelling initiatives has become more complex and the number of actors involved has increased over the past yearsthere seems to be a widespread lack of a clear understanding of Fair Trade among cooperative members, and Fair Trade remained an abstract concept to many producers, while their knowledge of organic production, for example, was quite well developedgender initiatives have so far been focused largely outside coffee production, and while some women have become coffee producers, their numbers remain quite small. Their limited participation in the coffee cooperatives appears to perpetuate rather than overcome the traditional gender bias in Latin America’s agricultural sector.The study concludes that efforts to broaden Fair Trade’s economic impact among small-scale producers in Latin America are creating challenges for deepening the vision and political impact of a movement that is based on social justice and environmental sustainability. This should be seen as evidence of Fair Trade’s success, and in some ways should be understood as a normal part of a maturing social movement. But it is not likely to be resolved easily, or soon. The study suggests that it is the commitment to achieving both goals that holds the most promise for the significant and lasting impact of not only Fair Trade, but of the grander efforts to create an alternative course of globalisation.