Conclusion

A poignant quote from a cooperative leader in Papua New Guinea captures the impact of low coffee incomes (especially where they fail to cover even the costs of production), on the smallholder coffee producers in his village: ‘If we don’t get enough [money] we won’t work hard; it will demoralise us’ (Cooperative Leader A, 2004). This message has been heard, it has been embraced, and it has been acted on through the development of the Fairtrade label, offering a ‘better deal’ for marginalised producers. Initiatives like Fairtrade demonstrate that another crucial point has been understood. Marginalised producers like this may feel demoralised but it is the consumers — be it the traders, retailers or individual end consumers — that should feel demoralised. Allowing and thereby effectively condoning an unequal exchange such as that which characterises the conventional coffee trade to occur and, even worse, to continue is, after all, inexcusable. The responsibility of traders and consumers has been grasped within Fair Trade networks, but what remedies does the Fairtrade label really offer marginalised producers in the developing world? This depends of course on which producers are examined: the minority supplying the Fairtrade market or the majority who are excluded?