The Price of Coffee and FLO

FLO (Fair Trade Labelling Organizations International), for the past 25 years has worked to pay struggling 3rd world farmers by paying them higher-than-market prices for everything from coffee to quinoa, and has "recruited retail giants like Starbucks". Even after FLO's help, of 179 Fair Trade coffee, more than half the families in Central America and Mexico "were still going hungry for several months a year" said a private-industry survey last year. Although FLO is paying "$1.55 per lb [which is] almost 10% more than the market price, [the farmers were] left with only 50¢ per lb. after paying Fair Trade cooperative fees, government taxes and farming expenses. By the year's end, from the few thousand pounds he grows, he'll pocket about $1,000-around half the meager minimum wage in Guatemala - or $2.75 a day." And "according to Fair Trade researcher Christopher Bacon of the University of California, Berkeley, the per-pound price that's needed for farmers to rise above subsistence is really more than $2" so the farmers can feed their families, adn to help better their lives, and coffee. "Even Starbucks is likely to buy less java at that cost". "Connie Silver, a nurse, sipping a large, $4.15 Frappuccino outside a Miami store. Asked if she'd pay, say, $4.50 or even $5 to help absorb higher Fair Trade prices, Silver raises her eyebrows and says, 'Wow, these days, that's a tough one.'" Another problem is how much water is needed just to create these drinks. Not only the water to create the drink but the amount of money it takes to grow the coffee beans.