Poverty In Your Cup Of Coffee

The word "poverty" can be defined as the state of having little of money, materials, and the lack of productiveness. Then adding poverty to coffee would mean that there is a lack of productiveness not only in coffee but in what farmers receive in return. Farmers around the world are getting poorer from a beverage that is being bought every second in the world. This unfairness is from the lack of fair trade that is going on throughout the world. Companies and everyday people should get to know how it is important to do fair trade especially to those who cultivate our coffee and support their families.

There are about 25 million coffee producers around the world and 50 percent of their coffee prices have fallen for the past three years (Background: Coffee). This indicates that the amount of money that the farmers receive from selling their coffee to other companies has lowered at an increase rate. As a result this becomes very disastrous because they are selling their beans more than the cost of what it takes to produce coffee beans. Then when the coffee beans are then sold to a company they receive little money from them, then that company would resale the beans for a much more price gaining profits which will never be given to the farmers. For example, a coffee farmer in Tanzania made about $60 from a production of coffee for a year, which its only 16 cents a day, this amount of money could not be able to cover the costs of producing more coffee beans and even to provide for his/her own family (Coffee Market).

Family, each coffee farmer has to work in order to provide for its own family but working in the fields picking beans all day long does not help these farmers to earn a living that would help them buy food for the family. Also, the adults aren't the only ones whom have to work in order to have money to buy food even the children have to work for their family. Oxfam, a committee for famine relief, had interviewed Vietnamese, East Africans, and Peruvians farmers stating that the coffee prices are the problem that intervenes with education for their children. Parents don't have the money to pay for education, uniforms, food, and books for school.