Canadian Tour with Santiago

We kicked off the tour with a visit to one of our newest members, Equator Coffee, based in Almonte, Ontario.  Cynthia Wagner and Reykia Fick of Transfair Canada met us at the train station and accompanied us on a tour of Equator’s warehouse and coffee shop, as well as for a small discussion on Fair Trade with the Equator staff and a few loyal customers.

The staff listened to Santiago’s description of the impacts fair trade has had on his community during their coffee break.

 “Fair Trade is not a small impact.  It is a major impact.  In the region where CEPICAFE is based, we now have full employment.  This has caused the entire economy to be revitalized, as we see the trickle down effect of this stable employment throughout the community.”

Next on the tour was a trip to Kingston, Ontario, where Equator Coffee has one of their best customers, The Sleepless Goat.  This worker-cooperative café is a very popular hangout for Kingston's mostly student population.  About a dozen worker-owners, as well as some curious students, sat down to hear Santiago’s account of how Fair Trade works, and some of the risks that the encroachment of large corporations might have on the movement.

The individuals present were deeply touched by the event, feeling privileged to hear a first hand account of life at the producing end of the coffee chain. One student wondered what proof, or answer, to supply when faced with a cynical comment from a Fair Trade skeptic.  Though often hard to boil down to a catchy sound-bite, I told her that there is no better answer than talking about Santiago's experiences. The impacts he has seen are irrefutable. His story makes the conceptual practical.

The next morning we boarded another train, this time to Toronto to visit Alternative Grounds.  Linda showed us their production space, including their roaster, packaging area, and bicycle cart (in the warmer months they deliver their coffee to clients by bike).

That evening, we held a small discussion on the future of Fair Trade in their café.  The gathering was aimed at people already versed in the issues facing the Fair Trade movement, which allowed our session to delve right into how to maintain the integrity of Fair Trade in light of the increased corporatization of “Fair Trade”.

Questions were asked, and solutions were proposed.  Listening to Santiago’s story of the large exporter’s certification by FLO brought to light why a solution is urgently needed if all that fair trade represents and strives to achieve is not to be destroyed.  Last year, a known oppressive large exporter was granted Fair Trade licensee status by FLO READ THE LETTER HERE.  This caused increased competition for small, grassroots producer cooperatives in the region.  Santiago helped spearhead the opposition to this unwarranted certification, though FLO has yet to listen to their concerns in a serious way.

“We are concerned that Fair Trade is caught in a vicious circle.  We started at the very beginning with nothing, have slowly built our way up to a better way of life and fairer system.  Now there is the possibility that we have already reached the apex, and that if things continue this way, everything will come apart and we will be back at the start of the circle, and we’ll have to build everything back up from scratch. What we are saying concerning Fair Trade in our coop, is that Fair Trade right now is on a sinking ship.  We are all looking around for an appropriate life raft to jump onto.”

We left a group of dedicated individuals, puzzled as to what form this raft should take, heartened by the amazing changes wrought by Fair Trade so far, and emboldened to somehow protect that system from being damaged.

The following day we left for Montreal, as Café Rico was the location of that evening’s presentation.  Again, a small group of dedicated fair traders assembled to hear Santiago’s story. This discussion focused more on where CEPICAFE got its start, as well as an in depth look at the different diversification projects, including cane sugar, cacao, and most recently marmalades, that they have been able to launch as a result of the stability and success of their Fair Trade coffee exports.

We concluded the meeting with a tasting of the delicious, exotic marmalades (green lime and pineapple) Santiago had brought from Peru.

Chicoutimi was next, in order to visit Café Cambio, our second-most northern member. After a lengthy drive, the small town in northern Quebec was reached in time to hold another insightful talk about fair trade.

Now at the tail end of the journey (at least the Canadian leg of it), Santiago arrived in Quebec City on Saturday the 10th, also known as International Fair Trade Day. A group of Quebec international cooperation organizations, namely Plan Nagua, Carrefours Tiers-Monde, and Oxfam Quebec, had put together a Fair Trade Fair.  The fair took place in the heart of the Old City, and was an interactive event where visitors could visit the kiosks of various Fair Trade actors and have discussions with those present.

Throughout the tour, Santiago maintained a positive outlook, and felt that the visit was a success.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for me to learn more about this end of the coffee chain.  Part of my job is to speak with producers about where their product ends up, and to explain to farmers not in our cooperative that there are consumers in the North that are interested in their story, and willing to pay a premium for a product of superior quality.  Relating these experiences helps make that job easier. It has been very interesting.”

If you were not able to make it to any of these presentations, no worries! Here is an in depth summary of Santiago's different talks, amalgamated into one.

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