Fair Trade Coffee: Coming to a Cafe Near You
Tamara Straus, AlterNet November 30, 2000

Here's a breathtaking statistic: The $3 many Americans shell out every day for a latte at Starbucks is equivalent to the daily wage of a Central American coffee picker. Nonplussed? Here's another heart-stopper, specially designed for the non-gourmet coffee drinker: Those $3.95 cans of Maxwell House and Folgers you pick up at your local supermarket, well, the beans that fill them are bought for around a quarter and come from corporate farms that use environmentally poisonous pesticides and clear-cut forests to produce the highest possible yields.

This may just serve as more fodder for those already sufficiently demoralized by the practices of big business. But what is interesting about such stats is they are being used to create a new American political animal: the ethical consumer. True, the ethical consumer may pale in comparison to the do-gooders of old -- the abolitionist, the suffragist, the fighter for civil rights or no nukes -- since his primary act is figuring out how to ethically empty his wallet.

Yet considering multinational corporations like Microsoft have annual revenues higher than the GNP of most countries -- and deregulation in the U.S. is on the rise -- ethical consumerism may be the best political weapon Americans have got.

Enter Fair Trade Coffee Consider the example of fair trade coffee or "politically correct coffee," as Time magazine has dubbed it. Fair trade coffee sells for a minimum of $1.29 per pound -- which goes directly to coffee farmers, not to "coyotes," the middlemen who pay farmers usually no more than 35 cents a pound. It is grown on small farms, which tend to cultivate in the traditional way: under the rainforest canopy and without pesticides. And because fair trade coffee has doubled farmers' annual incomes, more than 500,000 people in 20 developing nations are now living above the poverty line.

Nothing wrong with that. Indeed, those who hear about the benefits of fair trade coffee tend to support it. The only problem is that a nationwide advertising campaign is needed to get the word out, and large coffee retailers -- the ideal candidates for such an effort -- will not do it, since buying coffee at fair trade prices would cut into their profits. "Oh, it's the same old story again," you might say. "Good ideas, impossible to implement." But what is different about the fair trade coffee campaign is that, thanks to a coalition of nonprofits, good ideas are being implemented using ethical consumerism as a bargaining chip.

Dutch Innovation The story of fair trade coffee begins in 1988, in Holland, motherland of the international human rights movement. A group of fair traders selling coffee and other products at a crafts market decide to create a fair trade seal -- a label that will let customers know the product was bought at a decent price. They call the seal Max Havelaar after a best-selling 1860 book about the exploitation of Javanese coffee workers by Dutch merchants. In doing so, the traders remind their countrymen that coffee is a commodity tied to the history of colonialism.

In the same year, the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) is founded, an umbrella institution for European certification organizations like Max Havelaar, which have begun to help coffee farmers create fair trade cooperatives and connect them to retailers in the North. During the next decade, FLO's members draw a whopping half million farmers. The reason? Coffee farmers receive a tripled per pound price and FLO's arrangement eliminates their dependence on middlemen.

The farmers' end of the bargain is also relatively simple. In exchange for letting TransFair England, for example, inspect their farms and collect 10 cents per pound on coffee sold, coffee farmers get the right to use the fair trade logo. By 2000, FLO's efforts are a success. Fair trade coffee cooperatives have spread from Guatemala to Indonesia, and the TransFair certification seal is found in 16 European countries as well as Japan and Canada.

Worldwide, over 100 fair trade coffee brands are sold in approximately 35,000 markets. Organic fair trade coffee is also on the rise, as farmers are using their increased incomes to cultivate coffee without chemicals. America the Late Where were Americans during all this time? you might ask. Well, for one, wasting time over cups of joe. Americans consume an estimated one-fifth of all the coffee trade, making it the largest consumer in the world. Moreover, as anyone who lives near a Starbucks outlet knows, Americans have developed a yen for gourmet coffee, for cappuccinos and lattes and decaf mocha frappes.

This is the main reason Paul Rice, who worked with coffee farmers in Nicaragua for 11 years, founded a U.S wing of TransFair in the summer of 1999. "I just took the next logical step," says Rice. "In Nicaragua I saw fair trade coffee cooperatives find markets in Europe, and I assumed the same could be true for the U.S." Rice started local. FairTrade USA's headquarters in Oakland, Calif. meant it could take advantage of the San Francisco Bay Area's historic gourmet coffee tradition and liberal politics.

Within four months the Bay Area's reputation proved true: 12 local roasters signed up to sell fair trade coffee. Today 35 fair trade brands are available in 122 Bay Area supermarkets and cafes. The City Councils of San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley also have passed resolutions to support the sale of fair trade coffee. Fair Trade Frappaccinos?

But fair trade coffee advocates' real coup did not come until April 2000, when Starbucks, which controls 20 percent of the U.S. specialty coffee industry, agreed to carry fair trade. Of course, the agreement did not come without a fight. At first Starbucks refused to carry fair trade, explaining that until there was consumer demand it could not sell the politically correct bean in its 2,300 stores. But after being subject to a year-long campaign organized by Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights organization -- a campaign that eventually culminated in plans to stage protests at Starbucks in 29 cities -- the retailer decided to avoid a public relations nightmare and sell the beans.

"Fair trade gets the benefit back to the family farmer," said Starbucks vice president David Olsen shortly after the decision was made. "It is consistent with our values." Starbucks' decision to sell fair trade coffee, however, does not mean the company will brew it in their stores. This will depend on "consumer demand," say Starbucks corporate heads. So, once again, this will mean that Global Exchange and other fair trade coffee advocates will have to prove -- through a combination of grassroots organizing, educational outreach and threat of protest -- that a demand exists.

Deborah James, fair trade director of Global Exchange, says that consumer demand is not the chief problem. "Since fair trade became available at Starbucks in October," she says, "consumers have told us that they are buying it by the pound and that they want to see it as a 'coffee of the day,' something that Starbucks, it seems, will not do."

Alan Gulick, Starbucks' public affairs director, says the reason Starbucks does not serve fair trade as a daily brew is because "the volume of fair trade coffee needed in not available." Yet, according to Nina Luttinger, communications manager of TransFair USA, there is evidence to the contrary. She reports that in 1999 of the 60 million pounds of fair trade coffee produced globally only half sold on the fair trade market. "This meant that farmers had to sell their product through the usual channels and got paid much less," says Luttinger, who doubts that the fair trade coffee sale figures will be drastically different in 2000.

Still, Starbucks introduction of fair trade coffee is a victory for the movement. And the victory extends beyond the creator of the Frappaccino. During the 18 months fair trade coffee has been available on the U.S. market, the number of retailers has grown from 400 to 7,000, according to Paul Rice. In November Safeway, the supermarket king, launched fair trade coffee in 1,500 of its stores nationwide -- a decision Rice says came about not through threats of protest but through the supermarket's "enlightened self-interest." "Companies are coming to me now," says Rice. "And some, such as Choice Organic Teas, have decided to eat the cost of buying fair trade rather than raise prices. They want to support fair trade, introduce it to their customers and figure losing a few cents now is worth it."

But what about the big guns of the coffee industry: Nestle's, Folgers, Maxwell House? "I think it's going to be a challenge to convince companies who are paying less than 50 cents and selling it for around $4 that they should pay $1.29," says James. "Fair trade coffee successes so far have all been in the gourmet coffee industry." This fact makes activists in the ethical consumer movement cringe. For it raises the question of how wide the movement can be.

Will enough Americans care about labor conditions in the Third World and the environmental problems created there by American coffee corporations to force real change in the industry? Will they, as James has decided, "never voluntarily put someone in a situation of poverty, exploitation and debt just to enjoy a cup of joe." You may say no, but activists like Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Association, argues Americans have little choice: "We have an obligation to the environment, we have an obligation to human rights, to drive unsustainable coffee off the market. We need to reach that point, like when it became socially unacceptable to buy products from South Africa because of Apartheid."

How fair trade advocates will accomplish this sort of mass educational outreach depends on their mission and point of view. Rice, who works directly with coffee retailers, argues that the introduction of fair trade in the American gourmet coffee industry is having a domino affect. "Corporations realize they must meet the demands of their customers," says Rice. "And if their customers want fair trade, they provide it." James, whose organization Global Exchange is focused on international social justice issues, believes consumer knowledge about globalization is the key. She and her colleagues have tied coffee farmers' work conditions to the more familiar issue of sweatshop labor. "We call non-fair trade coffee 'sweatshop coffee' because many Americans know about sweatshop conditions in Asia and Mexico," she says. "They know the people who make Nike sneakers and Gap t-shirts are paid inadequate wages and work in unhealthy conditions."

Cummins, whose Organic Consumers Association is devoted largely to environ mental issues, also uses the term sweatshop coffee in its activist literature. But he also tries to get consumers to think about agricultural and environmental sustainability. "I tell people that the way coffee was grown for hundreds of years had a low impact on the environment," says Cummins. "And that with sun-grown coffee -- the 'innovation' of the international coffee cartel -- what you do is chop down everything and use a lot of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and so on. In essence, you destroy the environment."

European Sophistication Activists like James and Cummins have wondered why Europeans are ahead of Americans in bringing fair trade to market. Since 1998, seven different products -- coffee, tea, chocolate, bananas, honey, sugar and orange juice -- have been available with the fair trade label in Europe. Fair trade products were also available in Japan and Canada before the U.S.

Why are we behind? "In Europe the media's better," says Cummins. "The political system is based on proportional representation. There are the same number of people here as in Europe who support Green Party ideas; the difference is they have 10 percent of the seats in the European parliament and we have no seats in Congress." Cummins adds there is mass support for organic food -- and mass antipathy toward chemically altered or genetically engineered food -- because of Europe's Nazi past, which makes people extremely wary about a super race of anything or genetic enhancement.

The recent outbreak of Mad Cow disease is also an undeniable factor. "We just can't comprehend what it feels like to know that you might die because the government lied to you about industrial agriculture practices," says Cummins. "Europeans now say: 'Never am I going to just accept something because establishment science and the government tell me it's safe.'" As for a more sophisticated understanding of globalization, James says Europeans are ahead because they are able to tie the lessons of their colonial past to today's global future. "Europeans have a direct understanding that the system of agriculture we have now -- where farmers are exploited and their products are unfairly sold -- is based on a colonial system," she says. "Whereas in the United States we do not feel responsible for the fact that in the Winward Islands of the Caribbean people there are entirely dependent on banana plantations because we put them there."

James would like to link non-fair trade coffee to the history of colonialism or the concept of "neo-colonialism," but she says, "If you bring up the word colonialism or imperialism here, people have no idea what you're talking about."

Although Americans may be somewhat blind to history, polls show they are awake to the present. According to a December 1999 US News & World Report poll, 6 in 10 Americans are concerned about the working conditions under which products are made in the United States and more than 9 in 10 are concerned about working conditions under which products are made in Asia and Latin America.

This is good news for ethical consumerism. It shows that consumer choice based on criteria of economic justice and environmental sustainability has a future. But does it mean that ethical consumerism can grow beyond the 50 million Americans who supposedly practice it? Can ethical consumerism -- without government support and positive mainstream media attention -- be viewed as something other than the ultimate knee-jerk liberal issue? Argues Ronnie Cummins: "It's a very good historical trend that consumers are becoming more aware, but unless trade unions and churches, consumer groups and environmental groups work together -- North and South -- we're not going to solve this problem. Sure, we can alleviate some of our bad conscience on a day-to-day basis, but that's not getting to the root of the problem, which is unchecked globalization. Even if you can produce cheaper in China the hidden costs of doing something like that are pretty darn convincing."

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Here Come the Genenetically Altered Coffee Beans (Decaffeinated)
Genetically altered food not your basic mutant anymore
by Benjamin Shors Seattle Times staff reporter


You're spoiled - just admit it. You want great coffee without caffeine, trees without pollen, beans without . . . well, methane. And Steve Henikoff, a geneticist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, wants to oblige. He just wants you to accept - no, embrace - mutants. "All we're doing is taking a natural process and speeding it up," Henikoff explained as he sat in his office, speaking slowly to emphasize the point. "There's nothing to worry about just because it's a mutation."

But so far, biotech foods have caused worries, sparking recalls of taco shells, chips and corn flakes, and drawing the ire of some scientists, environmentalists and consumer advocates. Opponents say the foods are untested, unregulated and potentially damaging to humans and the environment. Despite the concerns, the huge potential of biotech crops has kept research like Henikoff's moving forward. His plan to take the bad things out of good plants received a big boost last month. The National Science Foundation gave his lab $2.6 million to streamline a technique called Targeting Induced Local Lesions in Genomes, or TILLING.

Developed by Henikoff and graduate student Claire McCallum, TILLING introduces and then rapidly identifies mutations in a plant's genome. It helps scientists determine the function of individual genes without introducing foreign DNA into the plant. To demonstrate how TILLING works, Henikoff turns to decaffeinated coffee - more specifically, really good decaf coffee brewed from genetically modified beans grown on hillsides in Colombia and Venezuela. That's the payoff - great-tasting coffee without the jitters, the headaches, the rapid heartbeat and sleepless nights. The catch? It'll be years before it hits stores. And, of course, there's the mutant thing.

When researchers announced last August that they'd isolated one of the caffeine genes in coffee, a collective buzz rippled through the coffee-drinking community. Decaf coffee, traditionally treated with chemicals that strip the caffeine and, purists complain, the taste, has long drawn the scorn of the morning saucer set. David Letterman, unable to drink regular coffee after heart surgery last year, derided decaf as "warm, brown liquid." But with the gene, one of several involved in the caffeine pathway, researchers say they can make decaf coffee so good you won't be able to tell the difference.

The next step, likely to require years of lab work, is to go from the caffeine gene to the coffee bean. The basic technology behind TILLING has been around since the 1930s when scientists began mutating genes - rendering them functionless - to see their effect on a plant. Rapeseed oil, for example, was an inedible machinist oil used during World War II before scientists were able to "knock out" a gene in the plant. The result: canola oil, now in kitchens across the country.

Henikoff and McCallum begin TILLING by soaking plant seeds in ethylmethane sulfonate, a common laboratory mutagen. The chemical randomly mutates bases across the genome. Some of the seeds become infertile, but the rest are grown, and their DNA, replete with mutations, is cataloged. Scientists who want to study any gene in a plant - such as the caffeine gene in coffee - can then search that gene for different mutations, from changes that stop production of an enzyme to changes that more subtly alter a protein's function. Researchers look at the parent plant to see the affect of the mutation. Scientists can then cross-breed the plants to isolate the trait they're looking for, a technique that's been around for centuries.

All of the steps, from soaking the seeds to detecting the mutations, are routine. "But it's the realization that you can bring these steps together," Henikoff said. "It's a thoroughly efficient way to find mutants," said Vicki Chandler, a University of Arizona professor studying gene expression in corn. "And making mutants is key to studying all sorts of important genetic processes."

Mutants are also fodder for cult classics like "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes," a B-movie in which previously peaceful fruit grow to enormous sizes and begin devouring bad actors. But very real concerns about genetically modified food - largely unregulated by the federal Food and Drug Administration - have ignited protests and fears across the country. Four of 10 Americans say they're "not likely" to buy food that's been genetically modified to taste better or stay fresh longer, according to a survey last spring by the International Food Information Council, a nonprofit organization funded in part by biotech companies.

But whether they know it or not, many consumers have already purchased biotech foods. In recent weeks, fast-food giant Taco Bell and the Safeway supermarket chain recalled taco shells made from biotech corn not approved for human use. The bulk of the concerns about biotech foods surrounds transgenics, a powerful but controversial technique that inserts genes from one species into another. "The issue with transgenics is the capacity to bring in new genes that haven't been in that genome before," said Jane Rissler, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has been critical of government oversight of biotech crops. "It's this power to combine genes from very different organisms that's causing concern."

A Cornell University study last year showed that pollen from genetically modified corn, which was bred to produce insecticide, could kill monarch butterfly caterpillars in the laboratory. But a preliminary report issued last month by the Environmental Protection Agency said the corn is unlikely to pose a serious threat to the butterfly.

There are other worries that genes could be carried by pollen from transgenic plants to native plants, or that allergens might be accidentally introduced into new foods. TILLING avoids some of those concerns because it relies solely on genes already in the plant. "It wasn't developed because we were trying to get around the transgenic issue," McCallum said. "But it could have definite uses in the commercial world. You'd have the upside of decaf coffee without the worries of introducing foreign DNA."

TILLING may have several other advantages: The technique is the same for any species of plant. Transgenics is difficult or unfeasible on some plants because the process has to be adapted to each plant. Transgenics, which requires highly specialized equipment and takes months to develop, is too costly to be performed on smaller crops, such as mint or clover. The mutations in "tilled" plants are more stable. The changes in transgenics can go away after several generations. However, TILLING can only remove traits from a plant; transgenics can add them.

Take, for example, golden rice, one of the biggest leaps for genetically modified foods. Inserting daffodil genes into rice produces plants with beta carotene, a building block for vitamin A. So fortified, the plant could be a boon to millions of the world's poorest people who don't receive enough vitamin A, which sharpens eyesight and strengthens resistance to infectious disease. But the plant can be made only by using transgenics. Genetically modified plants made by either technique, protesters say, threaten biodiversity and consolidate agricultural power with the giant multinational companies that develop the crops.

There are other questions. Researchers don't know the effects of removing a trait from a plant. Caffeine, for example, could be vital in protecting the coffee plant from fungal infections. "If you're messing with the genetic structure of a food or an organism, there needs to be long-term testing to make sure that that manipulation is not going to affect long-term health," cautioned Mark Helm, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, which has held several biotech food protests in Seattle. Henikoff and McCallum's work will remain academic, refining the technique for basic researchers. But a "tilled" product, Henikoff said, could be on the market in as little as five years. Benjamin Shors' phone message number is 206-464-2920. His e-mail address is bshors@seattletimes.com.

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Bakers Are Concerned About Unlabeled, Untested
Genetically Engineered Ingredients in Their Products Date:
The following link goes to a bakery industry trade survey about genetically engineered foods: http://www.bakery-net.com/rdocs/newsletr/01feb.html#3

Here are the conclusions:

Over 66% of responding bakers expressed enough concern over the use of genetically-engineered ingredients to indicate that they would prefer not to use them, or would be willing to pay more for unaltered ingredients. Considering that relatively little press attention has been paid to genetically-modified ingredients (compared to other dietary concerns such as high-fat or cholesterol levels which, in the past, received huge amounts of press coverage) the level of concern is surprisingly high. While the results of the survey do not bespeak the safety of genetically-modified foods, the results do point out one thing; Whether genetically altered foods are safe or not, unless the proponents of them wage a major p/r battle to convince consumers and processors of their acceptability, their application in the market is going to be limited for quite a while.

Local Cafes Welcome Fair Trade Coffee
by ERIN GALLAGHER
October 19, 2000

Whether students go to a cafe to meet a study group or get their daily fix of caffeine, one thing is for sure, the coffee business in Berkeley is an integral part of student life. Students may ponder whether to order a latte or a cappuccino, or perhaps decaf or regular. But how many actually ponder where their java comes from?

The fairly young "fair trade coffee movement" takes that question and places a new importance on what kind of coffee they drink. The movement specifically attempts to help small coffee farmers who need assistance accessing the market by ensuring that fair trade-certified coffee farmers receive a fair flat rate, regardless of market fluctuation. The big name coffee growers, with large farms and a large following, can sell coffee even when the market is down because of their size and prominence, said Doug Welsh, director of coffee purchasing at Peet's Coffee & Tea.

Peet's recently started selling a Fair Trade Blend, joining a slew of local cafes, responding to activist and consumer pressure, which have brought fair trade coffee to customer's cups. Even the university has begun using fair trade coffee at the Free Speech Movement Cafe and the residence dining halls. "The consumer is the engine," Welsh said. "If the customer doesn't demand it, it will only go so far. Awareness needs to be raised so that consumers will look for the fair trade symbol and know when they buy fair trade coffee they are giving direct assistance to small farmers."

Coffee is traded on the Future's Market and is one of the largest commodities traded in the world, second to oil. Farmers with enough money to make very high quality coffee are paid premium prices, Welsh said, but that is why the smaller farmers need help. The price of raw coffee is fairly cheap, so middle agents often exploit small coffee growers by offering them a very small price for their crop, which farmers have to accept because they have no other option.

The fair trade system gives guarantees to farmers so that instead of worrying about losing money or reducing their quality, they can focus on producing good coffee for which they will receive a fair price. Fair trade works through the price floor mechanism, which is set at $1.26 per pound of coffee. It is paid to the farmer cooperatives, which can be made up of hundreds to thousands of workers, Welsh said. In order to qualify for fair trade certification, a co-op must produce only very small amounts of coffee beans. Typically the farm only has one to three acres.

The third party organization, TransFair USA, guarantees that the co-ops will receive this minimum price and distributes the money. "Although the system guarantees payment, it is not designed to pay coffee growers $1.26 forever," Welsh said. "The hope is for farmers to invest in their farms, perhaps purchase a mode of transportation, thus becoming better farmers and eventually they won't need fair trade assistance anymore." TransFair is a nonprofit organization that monitors the coffee market. Along with certifying the coffee growers and the coffee sellers, TransFair also certifies the coffee roasting businesses and has currently approved 64 roasters and 16 importers.

In order to be certified, the businesses must meet specific requirements and sign an agreement with TransFair that the coffee they label as "fair trade" is bought from fair trade cooperatives. The organization follows a complete paper trail from coffee grower to seller, Luttinger said. "They basically open their books to us," said Nina Luttinger, spokesperson for TransFair. "We should be able to trace every bag of coffee back to the cooperative who sold it." University Housing and Dining Services unveiled fair trade coffee last month and will serve it in the residence halls. Peerless Coffee Company, which supplies the residence halls with coffee, started delivering the fair trade coffee approximately three weeks ago. George Vukasin Jr., vice president of Peerless, commented that UC Berkeley buys organic and fair trade coffee, which is more expensive and a "notch above" regular fair trade coffee. "I'm an alum, so I want Berkeley to be on the cutting edge," Vukasin said. Vukasin compared the fair trade coffee movement to the organic coffee movement that began 25 years ago.

When the organic movement began, selection was limited, but now the industry has grown a great deal. The main concern of coffee roasters, both Vukasin and Welsh said, is the quality of the coffee. There are a small number of farms producing fair trade coffee currently, so there is a smaller sampling to pick from. "We're very picky about our coffee," Vukasin said. "The market for fair trade coffee is getting better and we've found some beautiful coffee. It's a good thing for everyone." Local Berkeley coffee houses have also been swept up in the movement whether they wanted to or not. Last spring, protesters voiced their disappointment in the lack of fair trade coffee at Starbucks and the newly opened Free Speech Movement Cafe. Since then, those cafes have decided to join the movement, while others have continued to serve just regular old joe.

"I'm all for fair trade coffee, but we like the coffee we have," said Ken Kamura, manager of Wall Berlin Kaffeehaus. "We stick with our traditions." Kamura said he received a positive response from the coffee he uses and thus has no intentions on changing. Daryl Ross, owner of the Free Speech Movement Cafe, Muse, the cafe at the Berkeley Art Museum and Caffe Strada, said the goal of fair trade coffee is to raise awareness of the products everyone consumes. All the drip coffee served at the Free Speech Movement Cafe and Muse is fair trade, while Caffe Strada does not serve drip coffee. At all three cafes, patrons can order fair trade coffee for their espresso drinks for an additional 25 cents. "If it's available, I always buy it, but we shouldn't have to pay cafes extra to support workers," said Taal Levi, a sophomore. "We should only sell fair trade coffee on campus."

Strada is in the process of turning over all of their coffee to fair trade, without additional charge to patrons. "It's part of our philosophy having cafes on and around campus," Ross said. "We want to introduce students who are away from home, possibly for the first time, to food that makes them aware of where the products they buy come from." All of Strada's fair trade coffee is also organically grown. In comparison to the $1.26 that cooperatives receive for fair trade coffee, they are paid $1.41 for coffee that is both organic and fair trade. Last Thursday, San Francisco celebrated fair trade with the introduction of Peet's Fair Trade Blend in city hall. Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland have all passed resolutions to support fair trade coffee, Welsh said. The city of Berkeley has purchasing restrictions that allow it to only buy coffee that is certified fair trade. "It turns an old Berkeley saying on it's head," said Welsh. "Drink locally and act globally."

Send letters to the editor to opinion@dailycal.org. -- Deborah James, Fair Trade Director Global Exchange deborah@globalexchange.org 415.558.8682 ext.245 415.255.7498 fax 2017 Mission Street #303, San Francisco, CA 94110 www.globalexchange.org/economy/coffee Buying Fair Trade Certified coffee is a simple, easy thing you can do on a daily basis to support fairness for farmers around the world. At least when it comes to our daily brew, there is finally an independently monitored alternative to sweatshops that sets a standard for Fair Trade in the global economy.

Researchers Identify Caffeine Gene In Coffee
By MATTHEW FORDAHL, Associated Press

Scientists have identified a gene in the coffee plant that is key to the synthesis of caffeine. They hope eventually to produce a genetically engineered coffee plant in which the gene has been shut down. The research was conducted by Alan Crozier, a professor of plant products and human nutrition at the University of Glasgow, and colleagues in Japan. It was published Thursday in the journal Nature.

Today's decaf often suffers because of the caffeine extraction process, which involves steaming the beans, washing them in organic solvents or subjecting them to other procedures after the coffee cherry has been picked from the tree. "The decaffeination processes, particularly with organic solvents, do not just take out most of the caffeine, they also take out some of the aroma and flavor," Crozier said. "So to an espresso addict like myself, decaf tastes like dishwater."

The genetic change would not alter the flavor. That's good news for people who love coffee but can't stand the taste of decaf or the effects of caffeine, which include heart palpitations, anxiety, high blood pressure and insomnia. But is the world ready for genetically altered java? "We've got to get past this scare-mongering that's going on about the growth of genetically modified produce," Crozier said.

The Glasgow researcher and his colleagues are waiting for additional money to create caffeine-free plants. So far, no coffee or tea companies have jumped at the opportunity. "We're looking for some commercial support, and I anticipate it would take us five years for us to produce the plants and get them grown on any scale," he said. Researchers at the University of Hawaii and Integrated Coffee Technologies Inc. also are developing genetically engineered coffee plants, but their process involves a different gene and earlier stages of caffeine synthesis. Integrated Coffee hopes to be selling plants in 2003, with the first commercial harvest in 2006.