Tucson, Arizona Thursday, 1 August 2002
By Michelle Locke
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERKELEY, Calif. - In a city where the politics and the coffee come strong and hot, a November ballot initiative requiring cafes to sell only environmentally and socially correct brews is drawing mixed reaction.
"It ranges from 'Great idea! I love it!' to 'Get a life!' " said Rick Young, the recent University of California, Berkeley, law school grad behind the measure.
The new law would make it a crime punishable by up to six months in jail and a $100 fine to sell brewed coffee that isn't certified as Fair Trade, organic or shade-grown. It would not apply to dry whole or ground beans.
Fair Trade coffee means farmers have received at least a minimum price set by the Fair Trade Labeling Organization. The price is currently $1.26 per pound, $1.41 for organic Fair Trade coffee, said Kenya Lewis of TransFair USA, an Oakland-based nonprofit group that certifies all Fair Trade products in the United States.
Fair Trade farmers also have the advantage of direct access to American markets. Coffee prices have dropped to levels below the cost of production, and some producers who have to deal with middlemen are getting as little as 20 cents a pound, Lewis said.
Different groups certify coffee as organic or shade-grown, the latter meaning the coffee was grown under trees that provide bird habitat and protect the soil. About 85 percent of Fair Trade coffee is organic, and a higher percentage is shade-grown, Lewis said.
Estimates on the price impact of the Berkeley measure vary from nothing to pennies a cup. Opposition tends to be more philosophical than pecuniary.
Berkeley cafe owner Daryl Ross already carries Fair Trade brews as an option, but "we just don't support the idea that we should be forced to carry that as the only brand of coffee."
At City Hall, Mayor Shirley Dean supports a rule requiring the city to buy only Fair Trade coffee but is wary of the idea of imposing that on private businesses.
"Who's going to enforce this?" she asked. "I can't believe anybody would be sent to jail for that."
Starbucks Coffee Co., which has three outlets in Berkeley, responded to the measure with a statement saying it helps farmers by signing long-term contracts and buying directly from farms and cooperatives. The company said it has always paid a minimum average of $1.20 for its coffee.
Starbucks sells Fair Trade and shade-grown beans and provides brewed Fair Trade coffee once a month in its North American stores.
Young's goal is to wake up people who don't know beans about where their coffee came from and how the people who grew it were treated.
"At first maybe it's shocking. People go: 'A law on coffee? Are you serious?' But when they think about it a little, they say, 'Well, we did ban leaded gas.' "
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