Perspectives on Fair Trade: Chris Bacon, Santa Clara University

In September 2010, CRS interviewed several participants at the Fair Trade Futures Conference in Boston, MA.  Coffee farmers, CRS Fair Trade Ambassadors, experts, and others told us about their experiences with and understandings of Fair Trade. 

Chris Bacon, Assistant Professor at the Environmental Studies Institute at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, CA, is one of six voices we will be featuring here leading up to the April 28-30 Specialty Coffee Association of America Exposition (SCAA) in Houston, TX.  Like the Fair Trade Futures conference, SCAA is a unique event that brings together actors along the coffee value chain. As we prepare for SCAA 2011, we wanted to share with you some of these diverse perspectives that give us insight as to why Fair Trade is so important to producers, businesses and consumers alike.
 
 
Hear Chris talk about things like capacity-building and what Fair Trade means for the farmers behind your cup of Joe.  Then come back and listen to Rigoberto Diaz, a coffee farmer in Mexico, talk about what Fair Trade means in his community.
 
Chris Bacon studies the relationships connecting sustainable livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in rural areas and how that relates to different value chains like fair trade and organic and international trade processes.  He is also co-author of Confronting the Coffee Crisis: Fair Trade, Sustainable Livelihoods and Ecosystems in Mexico and Central America, MIT Press 2008.