Joe

Fair Trade certification for coffee may have helped farmers a bunch through the low market prices of a few years ago -- by guaranteeing a higher selling price -- but now that prices are "more than double the 30-year low hit in 2001," it may be becoming more of a pain for farmers than it's worth, Reuters reported earlier this month from Guatemala. The certification is expensive. And in the big picture, supply for the stuff is still way above demand, even if it may seem to us like everyone in the U.S. is carrying that [usually token] fair-trade blend.

To me, that article ended up leaving more questions than answers. Have many farmers stopped doing certification because it has no longer become worth it, or are there just as many or more still doing it?