2008 Woodie Awards
College switches to fair trade coffee
Daniel Asip
Issue date: 2/8/07 Section: News
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Dr. Richard Niesenbaum, Professor and Head of the Biology Department, has spearheaded the move to make fair trade coffee more available. Niesenbaum has become an advocate for fair trade after a two-week trip to Nicaragua three years ago where he lived with a host family and harvested fair trade coffee on their farm. "The price of coffee hovers around 50 cents per pound worldwide and farmers get about 10 cents per pound," said Niesenbaum. "Coffee production is very labor intensive and therefore, most farmers are only able to harvest 10-20 pounds of coffee per day."
After doing the math, this results in a profit of between one and two dollars a day for the farmers, which leads to poor living conditions for these workers. "Fair trade means people spend more money on coffee to give a fair price to farmers," said Niesenbaum. "When coffee is certified fair trade, more money gets back to the community where these workers are living."
According to www.globalexchange.org, in order to become fair trade certified, an importer has to pay a minimum of $1.26 per pound for coffee. The website states, "Fair trade for coffee farmers means community development, health, education and environmental stewardship."
The benefit of fair trade coffee goes beyond just helping the farmers, it also involves helping the environment. "Fair trade coffee is organic coffee, and organic means being just to the environment," said Niesenbaum. "Most fair trade coffee is shade grown, which means growing and harvesting does not destroy the natural habitat for animals and other plants."
President Helm initiated the move to bring fair trade coffee to campus. He asked Niesenbaum to speak about fair trade at a Board of Trustees meeting. The trustees then decided to implement fair trade coffee at the College.
In terms of implementing this new coffee on campus, the change has been a relatively easy process for dining services. "Our vendors have always had fair trade as an option and our company promotes the use of fair trade coffee, so implementing a program was fairly simple," said John Pasquarello, General Manager of the College's Dining Services. "We believe offering fair trade coffee as an option here at Muhlenberg is socially responsible, and we are glad to have this be part of our daily options."
Although fair trade coffee costs more, coffee drinkers around campus will see no price increases when they are in need of a caffeine fix. "Due to the purchasing agreements we have with our vendors, we are able to offer a variety of fair trade coffee programs (Green Mountain, Seattle's Best and Starbucks) across campus at no additional cost to our customers, something we are proud of," said Pasquarello.
Pride is something that also comes to Niesenbaum's mind when he thinks about what the College has done. "Working with these coffee farmers puts a face on every cup of coffee I drink, someone's pride went into my cup," he said. "It makes me proud to be at Muhlenberg when I see fair trade coffee at GQ and other places on campus."
Ryan Campbell '08, Student Body President, echoed Niesenbaum's thoughts. "It's great that we're taking a step in the right direction in terms of where the College needs to go when it comes to environmental and social awareness," he said.
For Niesenbaum, the implementation of fair trade coffee has also complemented his teaching. "I've been teaching about fair trade coffee in my classes for three or four years," he said. "Students are coming up to me and saying welearned about this and now we're really seeing it."