Over the years, HCN has published
a number of articles on the issue of illegal immigration. There is
a simple fix for this problem that would probably cost much less
and be more effective than the current border protection or the
proposed Berlin Wall on the Mexico-U.S. border (HCN, 10/31/05:
Homeland security gets to bypass environmental laws).
Small family farms in Central America struggle against
multinational agribusiness, the ups and downs of commodity prices,
local coyotes (middlemen), and weather extremes. When prices
periodically dive, thousands of small farmers are forced to
emigrate to the United States for work. Worse, many of these
migrants lose their smallholdings and have nothing to return to.
Farm and local marketing cooperatives help to solve this
problem. The path leading from the small farms to your coffee cup
is long, and filled with powerful intermediaries. Little of the
money that you spend on coffee reaches farmers. The co-ops cut out
the long line of coyotes. According to a Guatemalan co-op, “A
farmer who sells his coffee to a local coyote received about 33
cents per pound in last year’s harvest; a co-op member can
sell his coffee to the co-op and earn 80 cents per pound.”
What can you do to help stem the tide of immigration?
Simply buy fair trade coffee, chocolate, and tea. These products
are labeled “Fair Trade” and are available in many supermarkets and
coffee shops. You can go to transfairusa.org, the certifying
organization, for a list of suppliers in your area.
Rob Robinson
Golden, Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fair trade reduces illegal immigration.
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