Coffees Fairly Traded

Smallholder  Farmers in Lower Income Countries 

are Vulnerable to Wide Commodity Price fluctuations and declining relative prices. In response, various market interventions have been designed to reduce smallholder vulnerability.

Fair trade is a market-based approach to smallholder development that attempts to use consumer demand as incentive to restructure global trading relationships. By contrast, free trade approaches to development emphasize liberalizing markets and increasing competition and smallholder efficiency as the route to improved smallholder well-being.

In Tanzania, 275000 hectares are under coffee cultivation, supporting some 500000 households. Small-holders, with an average area of 0.5 hectare, are responsible for over 90% of the country’s production.

Kuzilwa (1997, p. 46) defines smallholders as ‘farmers (households) owning relatively small farms and [producing] a variety of crops both for subsistence and cash. They depend on family labour to produce their output and use relatively labour intensive techniques of production’.

Tanzanian  farmers  who  grow  coffee  face  a  number  of  vulnerabilities  in  the  world  and  domestic markets. The global coffee market is characterized by volatile prices that are in long-term relative decline.

Tanzania’s coffee  industry  is  dominated  by  a  two-tier  cooperative  system.  Each  village  contains  a primary society run by officers elected from the community. Primary societies are organized regionally under umbrella cooperative unions.

Daraja Imports  proudly supports fair trade coffees.