Tuesday, August 27

 
Social Changes in the Grounds

Two voter initiatives, one in Berkeley, California, and one in Seattle, Washington, want to require anybody selling brewed coffee to sell only shade-grown, organic coffee for which the growers were paid a fair price. (No more Folger's for you!) Fair-trade coffee is available in many markets these days (even in little old Green Bay), but the protests have come thick and fast. Not just from people who resent having the government tell them what kind of coffee they can sell but from coffee associations themselves who say the rules will harm, not hurt, the small coffee growers who have been squeezed in the current world coffee glut. Their answer is to get people to drink more coffee. You make the call. This Chicago Tribune story handles the topic, rich with lampoon possibilities, even-handedly. I have no comment on the politics involved. However, whenever I hear about people who want to pass laws that spell out exactly which kind of product everybody can sell, I start looking behind the curtain to see which manufacturer or distributor might be holding the strings. How many purveyors of shade grown, organic fair-trade coffee are there in the world, anyway? Just asking.
posted by Unknown 9:46 AM