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Fair trade

Protesters with signs stand in front of a Starbucks storefront.

Low coffee prices are starving farmers. Can a cartel fix it?

The price for coffee beans is half what it was in 2014 and some farmers in coffee-producing countries say they need a cartel to protect them from rock-bottom prices.

Colombian miners looking to more environmentally friendly gold mining process

Environment

Children treated like slaves to produce supposedly ‘fair-trade’ cotton for Victoria’s Secret

Development & Education

Cadbury pledges fair trade chocolate bar

Development & Education

State of the Union: Spotlight on Trade with China

Global Politics

Bananas or the Environment: A Fair Trade?

Whatever the outcome of the banana war going on between the United States and Europe, there are serious concerns about the human and environmental impact of banana cultivation that are largely unaddressed. Steve Curwood talks with Living On Earth contributor Bob Carty, who spent many years in Central America reporting on the banana industry there.

Javatrekker

“Javatrekker” Dean Cycon has traveled the globe in search of coffee: from Papua New Guinea to Peru. He finds there’s much more to a cup of joe than meets the nostrils and taste-buds. In his new book, “Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade C

The World

Fair Trade

Bob Carty reports from southern Mexico on a coffee cooperative that conducts “fair trade” exchanges with European bean buyers. Proponents call “fair trade” an economically and environmentally sustainable way of doing business in the developing world.

Scarlet Tanagers are among the songbirds threatened by loss of habitat on conventional coffee plantations. The bird-friendly coffee movement is pushing to make growing beans for one of the world's favorite beverages more hospitable for birds and other wil

Bird-friendly’ coffee

Arts, Culture & Media

A recent study found that 13 percent of the world’s birds are either threatened or endangered. Among the causes is coffee. But there are efforts afoot to change that.