Students Attempt to Make Fair Trade Coffee a Requirement at all University of Minnesota Campuses

Since the beginning of the fall semester, Peace Coffee has joined the student group MPIRG (Minnesota Public Interest Research Group) educating students and faculty at the University of Minnesota about the benefits of Fair Trade by tabling at various events, offering samples on campus and hosting screenings of Black Gold. The students we've worked with have been amazing. Their dedication to Fair Trade and social justice is relentless.

For years, University of MN students on the Twin Cities campus have been working hard to achieve what some smaller colleges have already accomplished: a campus where all of the coffee for sale and consumption is 100% Fair Trade. On Thursday, Nov 29, MPIRG's Fair Trade Task force successfully passed the following resolution through the U of M TC's student senate:

That the U of M requires that in all the food service contracts it signs into with food service providers that all coffee sold on its campus' (Twin Cities, Morris, Duluth and Crookston) must be 100% Fair Trade Certified including all coffee retail locations, catering operations, and residence halls; and that whenever possible, this coffee be organic, shade grown, and purchased from a local roaster.

Although the Social Concerns Committee of the student senate passed a similar resolution in 2001 it only stated that Fair Trade coffee should be offered on campus not mandated and no percentage amount was assigned. Upon meeting with University Dining Services/Aramark the students learned that the one Fair Trade coffee option at all of their locations amounts to approximately only 8% of the total coffee on campus. They are now urging consideration of the new, redefined resolution on the basis that it takes the motions of the 2001 resolution a step further by creating a mandate: that all contracts require 100% of the coffee served and sold at the University of Minnesota to be Fair Trade Certified.

Now that the resolution has passed at the level of student senate, the next step will be for it to be considered by the Social Concerns Committee, made up of student senate groups from all of the U of M campuses, on December 10. At this, as well as the subsequent levels (it moves next to the University Senate - made up of students and faculty statewide - and finally to the Board of Regents and University President), pushing this resolution through would make the mandate binding for all campuses in the U of M system statewide. This action is scheduled to be resolved sometime in February of next year.

We applaud this dedicated work increasing the visibility and commerce of Fair Trade products and wish the Fair Trade Task Force all the best dealing with the daunting task in front of them. If at any point this resolution gets stopped, they would need to re-strategize and try another angle. If you would like to lend your support to their campaign, the students encourage you to write letters to the editor of your local newspaper, and to the MN Daily or other campus papers that will be seen by administrators. As a student or faculty member of any of the U or M campuses, you can add your name to the ever-growing list of individuals on the petition in support of the resolution. For more information, contact MPIRG's lead campus organizer Jamison Tessneer at jamison@mpirg.org.

For more info on the students campaign for Fair Trade on campus read this recent story in the U of M Daily: Students advocate for fair-trade coffee at the U

(Back to Headlines)