Global Exchange : gx100001.html (#)

  „Until 1989, the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) helped stabilize prices by regulating world supply. The US worked to abolish the ICA in 1989 in favor of a "free market" in the coffee trade. Many countries have since then worked to expand their coffee exports to generate foreign revenues to help finance debt. The result is a worldwide coffee surplus that has led to a crash in market prices and huge profit growth for coffee companies at the expense of farmers around the world.“

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/.../ gx100001.html - Cached

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Global Exchange : nacla1000.html

  „The idea of marketing fairly priced products from cooperatives is not entirely new, particularly for people who were sympathetic to Central America's revolutionary movements of the 1980s. At that time, solidarity activists and organizations, such as the Boston-based group Equal Exchange, were importing and selling small amounts of Nicaraguan coffee to support that country's Sandinista movement, and paying farmers fair prices. Their support made the difference in many cooperatives keeping rather than losing their land when the Sandinistas lost power in 1990. The Fair Trade Federation, the national association of fair trade retailers and wholesalers, boasts over a hundred business members that import or market crafts with the primary motive of supporting cooperative producers with fair prices.“

http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/ nacla1000.html - Cached

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