2008 Woodie Awards
View print edition front page as a PDF
News
AU groups support fair-trade coffee
By John Riley on 3/24/05
|
Debate over the ownership of a proposed coffee shop in the Mary Graydon Center is rising to the surface faster than it takes a pot to percolate. An unidentified student dropped two banners promoting Pura Vida coffee from the roof of Mary Graydon at 11:10 on Monday morning while many students were switching classes. One banner ripped and collapsed under its own weight, but the remaining one read "Ideas into Action: Living Wages, Organic, Shade-Grown, Nonprofit. Pura Vida - The Guilt-Free Choice." The banner remained suspended for more than an hour.
The banner drop was part of the ongoing discussion between AU social justice groups and AU administration over the upcoming replacement of Auntie Anne's Pretzels with either a Pura Vida coffee shop, a company known for its fair-trade practices, or a Starbucks. The university is searching for a vendor to replace the pretzel shop, which has not been as popular among students as hoped, according to Julie Weber, executive director of AU's Housing and Dining Programs.
Fair-trade companies, like Pura Vida, pay coffee farmers a living wage, a base price that covers the cost of production and ensures that farmers make a profit, at a time when coffee prices are the lowest they have been in years, said Casey McNeill, co-facilitator of Community Action and Social Justice, a campus group that favors Pura Vida. Most coffee companies sell the coffee at prices that are lower than the cost of growing and harvesting it, she said.
Starbucks, however, is a free-trade company, which means that the market sets the price of its coffee, affecting the wages received by coffee farmers and growers. Starbucks has recently started a "social responsibility" campaign and now offers Fair Trade Certified coffee in 23 countries, according to its Web site. According to the company's annual Corporate Social Responsibility Report, fair-trade coffee made up 1.6 percent of Starbucks' total coffee purchases in 2004.
Students and administration have been debating which company will replace Auntie Anne's since last fall, said Brian Kruglak, a member of CASJ and the Movement for Global Justice at AU, another social justice campus group.