What is the history of the Fair Trade coffee movement?
Global Exchange began spearheading a campaign to promote Fair Trade coffee in the summer of 1999. During the summer we focused our campaign on our local Bay Area. We organized a coalition of interested human rights, environmental, church, social justice, and student organizations that believed in the model of Fair Trade and wanted to help promote living wages for farmers. We outreached to the local press and generated stories about Fair Trade in the Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Contra Costa Times, San Francisco Examiner, and San Jose Mercury News about Fair Trade coffee. We helped to host Santiago Rivera, a farmer from San Francisco’s Sister City of Estelí, Nicaragua, for an event with San Francisco Supervisor and living wage advocate Tom Ammiano. We worked with San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland city councils to be the first governments in the country to offer Fair Trade Certified purchasing restrictions. We increased the retail outlets that offer Fair Trade Certified c
