Spilling the Beans

This post appeared on New West.ca

I recently spent two weeks at Nueva Alianza, Guatemala, volunteering on a cooperative coffee and macadamia nut farm, and have come to the conclusion that Fair Trade Coffee is not the knight in shining armour portrayed to us java guzzlers here in the industrialized world. Fair Trade Coffee is a mixed bag.

In order to be Fair Trade Certified, coffee producers must pay 2000 Euros (roughly $2,970 Canadian) to purchase a coffee license, and must meet certain standards set by Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International, or FLO. This is a good thing, since standards ensure quality control and avoid abuse and corruption, but are only valuable if they better the lives of the people they are meant to benefit.

The average Guatemalan coffee picker earns less than $1,000 Canadian per year. For poor communities such as Nueva Alianza, a Fair Trade certification costs nearly triple the average income, simply beyond their means. On farms with relatively low annual production, the increased price Fair Trade Coffee commands is unlikely to actually cover the annual expense the community pays for their Fair Trade Licence. It’s a bit of a vicious circle.

Coffee pickers in Nueva Alianza receive 25 quetzales (about $3.25 Canadian) per 100 pounds of coffee “cherries” picked. (The cherries are the red, ripe fruits of the coffee plant, each of which contains two coffee beans.) That is the equivalent of about CA$3.40 per 100-pound bag. Though Nueva Alianza is seeking outside assistance to gain Fair Trade certification, right now the cooperative can’t afford to operate within the system.

You may not know how painstaking processing coffee is. Beans have four outer layers that must be removed, and take a great deal of time and labour power to husk. Therefore, a 100-lb bag of cherries will actually only yield about 20-30 pounds of beans - once refined, close to a seventy per cent loss. Roasting reduces the yield still more, to only 11.5 pounds. You don’t need to be a business mogul to understand what a liability that is. That, combined with a very unstable coffee market that fluctuates considerably, makes it a wonder that coffee producers make any money at all. Unfortunately—as is often the case—economics have no effect on the fixed costs involved in producing a quality product or bringing coffee to world markets.



So, should we turn our backs on Fair Trade Coffee? Whatever its faults, my opinion is it’s imperative to continue to buy Fair Trade Coffee – the positives outweigh the negatives. Our dollars have a voice and it is important for us to build consumer demand for Fair Trade products, including everything from coffee to cotton to chocolate to bananas. In a city as rich as Calgary, there is really no excuse for doing otherwise.

Why? At the moment, buying Fair Trade may not immediately equate to increased wages for the coffee pickers themselves, but the producers do benefit. In Nueva Alianza’s case, because the money will be reinvested in the community, it will benefit the workers at large. When these reinvestments allow the farmers to produce a higher-quality crop with a correspondingly higher price, it will equate to higher wages for the pickers. The war fought over coffee will end as soon as enough cognisant consumers look at the plight of coffee producers and take a stand.

I have a thought every time I belly up to the counter, and that is this: if the coffee pickers are spending hours on a humid, sweltering hillside, braving coral snakes and fire ants, breaking their backs for three dollars and forty cents to pick a hundred-pound bag of cherries, surely I can spend at least that to help ensure they are getting a humane wage for their product? Any way you slice it, under the conventional system the pickers and the harvesters draw the short end of the stick. While Fair Trade may be imperfect, its shortcomings are nothing compared to the swindle committed by regular trade coffee companies.

So, the good news is that there are plenty of independent coffee-mongers right here in Calgary: The Good Earth Café, for example, is a lovely place which serves 100% Shade Grown and 100% Organic coffee. All of their blends contain significant proportions of Fair Trade coffee.

Coffee shops such as Urban Bean, Weeds Café and Kaffa Coffee House also carry blends from The Cochrane Coffee Traders, who roast its coffee right in Cochrane.

If you buy coffee for your home, Ten Thousand Villages carries an assortment of Fair Trade and Organic coffees, as does Community Natural Foods. Saltspring Coffee Company and Kicking Horse coffee are great Organic Fair Trade Canadian Coffee companies available at Community Foods.

If, however, you would prefer to support coffee producers in Guatemala, you can find out about buying Fair Trade from Café Conciencia (Coffee with a Conscience.) A full 100% of proceeds from coffee sales go directly back to the worker-owned communities such as Nueva Alianza that grow, process, roast and package it. That way, the communities are earning over five times as much per pound of coffee as they would on the conventional market, and over three times as much as in the mainstream Fair Trade market. This is a true grassroots organization with prices that can’t be beat. One pound of coffee costs $10 US and that INCLUDES shipping and handling.

Bottoms up.

Gay Organs Rejected

Also in the Calgary Herald Q

Health Canada recently created regulations which will ban any gay man who has been sexually active in the previous five years from donating organs. This was done because gay men are considered to be members of a “high risk” group. According to Egale Canada, “the rejections are based solely on sexual orientation rather than on unsafe sexual practice. Health Canada is essentially telling Canadians that unprotected sex is safe as long as you aren't a gay man.”

So under these new regulations, it appears that it would be perfectly acceptable for, say, Paris Hilton to donate her organs, but Sir Ian McKellen would be refused. Because Paris Hilton’s sexual activity is not high risk at all.



As it turns out, statistically the fastest growing HIV demographic in Canada is young, heterosexual women, who make up over a quarter of all HIV infections. So why are gay men being singled out? Is Health Canada not reading its own press?

I’m also wondering how the organizations are going to know which organs belong to a gay man? Are the organs going to be waving rainbow flags? Are they going to have a keen sense of style and know how to accessorize? Maybe they’ll be wearing assless chaps? How is anyone even going to know that the organ is “gay?” Well, apparently, transplant organizations will conduct thorough and—I’m sure—scientifically-supported interviews of family members with a series of questions pertaining to travel, infectious disease, drug use and, yes, sexual orientation. I know personally, that my parents are the best sources of information in regards to my sex life, so really how could this interview process be anything but fool proof?

This makes me think of the tainted blood scandal of the late nineties. Back in 1998, my blood was rejected and my donor card cut up because I lived in France for more than six months in 1991, where there was believed to be a few isolated cases of Mad Cow Disease. And I haven’t donated blood since. They lost a perfectly good, regular donor over a policy that eliminated everyone, rather than using a blood test to eliminate BSE. So now I worry that the same will be true for organ donation. Wouldn’t a simple blood test rule out HIV? Testing an organ at the end, rather than rejecting it at the beginning seems much more logical to me.

Allow me to be clear: I do believe that it is important to have strict procedures in place for organ and blood donation. I understand that it was essential in 1998 for Canadian Blood Services to redeem blood donation and transfusion in the eyes of Canadians in order to make us feel safe. Health Canada should absolutely be making sure to stop unsafe organ transplants, but they should not be isolating one demographic or rejecting healthy, potentially viable organs. And doesn’t it seem more reasonable to concentrate on high-risk behaviours, rather than so-called high-risk groups? And if they are going to concentrate on high-risk groups, then for goodness sake, focus on the right ones.

It is sad that open discrimination by our own government is still happening. To me, it would be the equivalent of saying that the organs of all Asians or Blacks need to be rejected. Sometimes I feel like homophobia is the last socially accepted form of discrimination. It’s 2008. Isn’t it time that gays stopped having to deal with discrimination, hatred and rejection? Isn’t it time to bury the hatchet?

Maybe all the rejected gay organs are going to make the most of it by running off to New York and starring in an off-Broadway musical of "Homorgans: The Rejected Kidney Story." I hear Liza Minnelli is interested in a part.

Go Here

For a couple of reasons, I won't be posting on this blog anymore. As you know, it is secure at the moment, and will stay that way until I have left my current employer. Also, there are some great posts on here that I may decide to use in some shape or form later on down the road. Right now, it is important for me to protect the information that is on here, for obvious reasons. My main focus will be to write posts for Q blog. A copy of those posts can be found at Front Rowe Seat:

http://frontroweseat.blogspot.com/

Camrose Cat Killers

This post also appeared in the Calgary Herald Q

On Sunday, four adolescents were charged for having microwaved a cat to death. This is strange and yes, deplorable, repugnant behaviour, but what really surprises me is how blindly outraged people are getting about it. Oh, nothing pisses people off more than animal cruelty.

I am by no means condoning these adolescents’ behaviour. I think it is disturbing and creepy. What bothers me is how uninformed people tend to get on their moral high horse, jump on the bandwagon and start spouting all their fury and disgust about something that really, they don’t know all that much about.

There has been a group created on Facebook called “Camrose Cat Killers-Prosecuted them as Adults.” Without going into the grammatical errors of the title, it is clear that the site as been spawned out of pure hatred. Members are on there divulging the kids’ names and then commenting that they didn’t realize it was illegal; someone else is quoting the Criminal Code of Canada while others are declaring that letters be sent to Stephen Harper in order to pass Bill C-373. Outlandish and presumptuous comments are being made about the parents having failed in their duties, the justice system having failed in its duties, and oh here we go: now the adolescents are going to become serial killers because they used to be bedwetters. Oh, and a bundle of people are going to appear in protest on the steps of the courthouse. Or at least they would, if they didn’t have to work. And of course, pictures of people with their pets abound! They are plastered all over the place and absolutely everyone is up for a little armchair justice.

Give me a break.

We have troops being killed senselessly in Afghanistan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan was just assassinated; genocide occurs regularly in Africa and THIS is what people are choosing to be angry about? I’m not siding with the adolescents or condoning their behaviour; I’m not saying they don’t need psychiatric assessment; I’m not saying animal cruelty laws shouldn’t be toughened; All I’m saying is that people get irrational when it comes to pets, and they get up on their little soap boxes and start making inflammatory and unrealistic pronouncements about a “call to Arms” and the like. The truth is, isn’t it easy to be morally righteous about killing and harming animals? Yes, they are helpless and no, we have no right to hurt them. So, of course it is an outrage. And it seems as if people like nothing better than to stand in judgment and lay blame. The truth is, we have no idea what factors may have been in play.

These Facebookers are completely missing the point: You want to get the cat law changed, fine, but don’t do it from a place of hatred; that just breeds more hatred. And finger-pointing is doing nothing to actually solve the problem. All it is doing is feeding more fuel to an already large fire and spawning the idea that vigilantism is the only way to receive true justice. Maybe I should start a Facebook group of my own demanding that we pass a Kitty Gun Law so that our pets can all start packing Heat. And then I’ll move to the United States, where I would fit right in.

Welcome to Calgary

This post also appeared in Calgary Herald Q

I am a bad Calgarian. I have lived here for about six years, and I still don’t like cowboys. I don’t particularly like the Flames and almost pride myself on my complete and total ignorance towards the sport of hockey. It took me years to figure out what a Plus 15 was and even longer to hear the words “Red Mile” without gagging. I don’t drive the Deerfoot to get to work and I don’t work in oil & gas; I have never been to a pancake breakfast or seen the Stampede parade. I don’t know where Chapparelle is; I don’t get a headache from a Chinook and I still think that a Hummer is something that shouldn’t be talked about in mixed company. Yep, I think it’s safe to say: I am a pretty crummy Calgarian. In fact, I didn’t even start referring to myself as a Calgarian until I had lived here for more than three years. Even now, I don’t exactly broadcast it.

So it comes as no surprise that my mother felt the need to give me the “Calgary Book of Everything" for Christmas. I could tell: she felt my pain. I was egregiously undereducated on my city of residence, and it was time to do something about it. Apparently, my family could no longer tolerate all that ignorance. Now, for those of you purported “Calgarians” who may be unfamiliar with this little gem of a book, it provides the new-comer with “everything you wanted to know about Calgary and were going to ask anyway.” Ex: Wild Weather, Oil Patch Slang, Best Honky Tonks, Famous Calgarians, and oh, my very favourite: Crime and Punishment.

So for those of you new to our fair city, you might not know that the Number One vehicle of choice for Calgary car thieves is the Chevrolet/GMC truck, or that The Naval Museum of Alberta listed as Calgary’s Best Kept Secret. Who knew? And did you also know that wrangler Guy Weadick had a life-long fascination with trick roping. No really, that was his name.

And unlike me, if you don’t even know whether or not you are a bad Calgarian, this book can help you with that too! They have so helpfully included a section called “You know you’re from Calgary when…” with fifty-five hints to let you know exactly where you stand. Of course, I failed miserably. So it got me to thinking: maybe my New Year’s resolution should be to find out what bitumen means or learn the names of the Stampede Queen and Princess and commit them to memory? Hell, maybe we could even go for a horseback ride together and talk about our feelings.

Yes, this book is replete with indispensable facts and no good—or as the case may be—bad—Calgarian should be caught dead without it. And if not knowing the Top Five Scallywags in Calgary’s History is driving you crazy, then this is the book for you. Yes, that’s it: this year, I am going to commit to becoming a better Calgarian. Well, we can all have our dreams, can’t we?

So Happy Together

Oh Krowe’s nest, where ya been all my life? Things just haven’t been the same without you. I have missed you. Like two quarrelling best friends who have been apart too long, we belong in this world together. I promise that I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. We will spend long, romantic nights together, take long walks along the beach and talk about our feelings. Let's drink Chambord Royale Martinis and talk shit about the neighbours. Let's frolic and play, the Eskimo way...

Oh, I’m so in love with you Krowe’s Nest. I'm just saving up for the ring, and someday very soon, I'm going to ask you to be my girl...

xoxo

Song of the Day: "So Happy Together" The Turtles