Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived
A subtle change has been made to the comments links, so they no longer pop up. Does this in any way help with the problem about comments not appearing on permalinked posts, readers?
Update: seemingly not
Update: Oh yeah!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Why has the Fairtrade coffee minimum price only gone up by 6 cents in the last five years?
Five years ago, I was defending the Fairtrade organisation against various neoliberal ballbags making obviously silly arguments ("price support in coffee is stopping coffee farmers having the incentive to grow all those other profitable crops you can plan in the mountains!") or things that were visibly untrue ("they ban tractors!"). I still think I'm broadly right on those specific points.
On the other hand, Peter Griffiths makes some good points here, and given the massive growth of the Fairtrade marketing organisation over the last five years, I think it's pretty scandalous that the minimum support price has hardly risen, and the Fairtrade 10c premium (which is only paid to some growers) hasn't increased either. Most coffee merchants earn a lot more than 10c per pound on their marketing. There's something worth taking a look at here.
this item posted by the management 12/22/2009 01:48:00 AM
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