Coffee. The lifeblood of the American undergrad. Seeing as I drink it every morning without fail, I thought it was only fitting for me to go to this Saturday’s Gimme! Coffee presentation.

What I found most interesting about this presentation was how they described their work with growers to be relationship-based as opposed to Fair Trade or Certified Organic. This structure stems from the idea that many small growers simply do not have the resources to  get certified, putting them at a disadvantage when marketing to potential buyers.

I personally really, really like this idea. Just as “organic” is putting small farms out of business, “Fair Trade Certified” can easily result in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. I believe that there is more going into a product than just time and money, and that we need to make more conscious decisions about who we support when consuming goods. It has no real effect on the quality of the product, but at the same time, our money should be going to someone who we know is going to do good things with it. As we would say in my economics class, we vote with our dollars, and I want to vote for the upstanding individuals who put in the extra effort to be decent human beings.

In the meantime, I guess we can just keep enjoying really good cups of coffee. 🙂