pay 'em fair

on pbs today was a documentary entitled 'blackgold' that followed the lives of Ethiopian farmers in a fight to get paid fairly for their coffee.

it was appalling how little these farmers were paid for their coffee. farmers are paid so little that they are unable to provide for their basic necessities.

one case was particularly disturbing. a man who had been a farmer for about 20 years
explained his decision to stop growing coffee and grow chat(khat/mira)(a narcotic that is illegal in many countries). this was especially disappointing to me, because prior to that he had explained that each coffee tree takes about five years to yield good fruit, and yet here he was uprooting his coffee because he doesn't want to die of starvation.

according to the documentary approximately 7 million Ethiopians are dependent upon foreign food every year.

also, Africa's share of world trade is 1%, which is totally shocking to me. they stated that if the trade would rise by another percentage point (1%) that it would equal 70 billion dollars which happens to be the amount the continent receives in foreign aid! aint that something.

i know a lot of us are poor students and or recent graduates. but we must be educated consumers. buy fairly traded products. write letters to the big corporations. in the case of coffee the documentary listed four major traders: kraft, nestle, proctor & gamble and sara lee. you can add starbucks to that as well.

this doc reminded me of another one on pbs about the garment industry in China. the workers were overwhelmingly underage and female. they were working crazy hours i.e. 12- 17 hours straight under very strict rules. companies were buying pairs of jeans for like four dollars. can you remember the last time you saw a pair of jeans for fifteen dollars (giving them 11 dollar profit)and not on sale?

after seeing that i feel compelled to shop at used clothing stores/vintage. i dont want to participate in slavery. which is what that is. lets make no mistakes about it. straight up modern day slavery.