Coffee. It wakes you up in the morning, but is it fair.

Now I have a confession to make. I'm a coffee addict. I don't really get firing on all cylinders in the morning until I've got that first double shot espresso on board.

Now for a long time, I've had the attitude that life is way too short to drink cheap instant coffee which is why my beloved Delonghi Esam6600 coffee machine is such a valuable member of the Morgan clan. You know the type, top it up with water, fill the hopper with beans and she'll deliver as many freshly ground espresso's, lattes or cappuccino's as are required to make you a functioning human being.

On a recent trip to the local deli life suddenly became a little more complicated. You see, I like to play the field, well in coffee terms that is. As well as my regular brand of Brazilian dark roasted aribica, I also like to trial the other offerings, just in the hope that i'll find the perfect combination of deep flavor and a smooth silky finish. On this particular trip however, I noticed a new brand sporting a "Fair Trade" logo.

Now with life barreling along at a hundred miles an hour, one seldom has the time to stop and reflect on where stuff comes from, I mean, the keyboard that I'm typing on, the screen that i'm looking at now, all came from somewhere, but seldom are we prompted to to consider the fairness or ethics involved in the the production process.

So what was the "fair trade" logo on the coffee beans all about ? We're dolphins in jeapordy, were there circus folk involved.... I had to find out.

So armed with my trusty iPad, an emergency trip to the starbucks Wifi hotspot was called for. First stop Wikipedia, where all was revealed. It turns out that like just about every farming process on the planet, big business has managed to screw the small producers of coffee beans' pricing down so low that the price of production in places like Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Africa exceeds what the small producers receive.

So why is that a bad thing ?. The average coffee plantation isn't a huge mechanically harvested broad acre operation, but generally a cluster of small family plantations who grow and harvest the coffee beans to sell to a processor. In the past this was the only path to market for the small farmers and so the large processing companies could set the price. This of course was as low as possible, which meant that the only way to survive for the small farmer was to get the entire family including small children invloved in the growing, harvesting and transport.

Not good, considering almost 11 million hectares of famland is estimated to be dedicated to coffee production.

The problem was identified as early as the 1950's and several disparate organisations were formed to purchase coffee beans directly from the growers in order that they receive a fair market price so that the practices of forced child labor would cease. In 1997 the major fair trade bodies throughout the world formed the Fair Trade Labeling Organization which now sets standards, pricing and inspects and certifies growers.

So the "Fair Trade" coffee comes from growers with safe working conditions that pay their workers a fair wage and strictly forbid child labor. Not too shabby.

It is also great to see that since I became aware of the issue, most of the major coffee chains have embraced or at least reacted to their smaller competitors by offering fair trade options.

So on my return to the supermarket, my choices now lay firmly with the brands carrying the fair trade logo, so that I know the next time I fire up the Delonghi ESAM6600 and grind out the perfect double espresso, I can rest assured that no small children, dolphins or circus folk were harmed in the process.