All of my coffee is either
Fair Trade or better.
Farm Gate is better because it is “direct trade coffee”.
Farm Gate means that a price was negotiated with the farmer directly “at the farm gate,” that is, without any of the confusing export and import fees. The prices I pay for these coffees are above
Fair Trade minimums. My supplier can easily verify that the price I pay makes it to the people who do the work, and are responsible for the great quality of my coffee.
Farm Gate is a simple principle that allows coffee producers to make premium prices in reward for coffee quality, and to reinvest to improve quality even more in the future.My
Farm Gate supplier guarantees that
Farm Gate prices are 50% over
Fair Trade (FT) pricing, but often they are 100%+ more that FT minimums.
Fair Trade is a farm cooperative certification – that is, it does not allow certification for small independent farms. I do support coffee cooperatives, but they are often not what consumers might think. There are many excellent cooperatives, and many that are large, powerful, corrupt, and mired in bureaucracy. My
Farm Gate supplier avoids the bureaucracy of cooperatives that sometimes do not share premium prices with their farmer members.
Fair Trade certifies that the cooperative received the FT price, but it does not guarantee that the men and women who produce your coffee were paid the FT price.
