Fair Trade Coffee helps the environment!

Fair Trade helps sustainability! More and more Fair Trade companies and activist groups are recognizing that the more we help people, the more we help the environment. For example, Fair Trade coffee producers don’t just see the benefits of fair trade in their wallets. They also see it in their farms. Transfair USA, the organization promoting the Fair Trade Certified label in the United States, reports the following.

Fair Trade coffee and cocoa support small scale producer while encouraging and supporting the protection of diverse and forested ecological systems. Part of the fair trade certification process involves extra money for community programs, and the farmers and fair trade coffee companies partner on soil and water conservation. Over 80% of fair trade coffee is shade grown. Coffee grown under the natural forest canopy preserves habitat for wildlife including plants, animals, insects, and migratory birds. Best of all, most fair trade coffee is also organic, which protects coffee workers, their families and you, the consumer, from toxic chemicals.

Other fair trade organizations and companies realize that protecting people will help protect the environment. But, they are also realizing that protecting the environment will protect people from harmful chemicals, unclean water from waste runoff, and from depleting the natural resources they’ll need in the future.

We encourage you to learn more about your favorite brand of fair trade coffee and ask them what they are doing to encourage reforestation, terracing, composting and other environmentally sustainable practices. The next time you shop for coffee, ask for fair trade and give people and the planet a real break!