‘Ethical’ coffee is being produced in Peru, the world's top exporter of Fairtrade coffee, by labourers paid less than the legal minimum wage, says a report in the Financial Times.

Industry insiders have also spoken of non-certified coffee being marked and exported as Fairtrade, and of certified coffee being illegally planted in areas of protected rainforest. This casts doubt on the certification process used by Fairtrade and similar marks that require producers to pay the minimum wage. It also raises questions about the assurances certifiers give about how premium-priced fair trade coffee is produced. Though certified coffee makes up less than 2% of the global coffee trade it has become increasingly mainstream as large retailers such as Starbucks and McDonald's adopt it. Luuk Zonneveld, MD of Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International, the Bonn-based body that sets fair trade standards, said that the certification system ‘is not fool and leak-proof’ but said the problem should be put in context. ‘Poor farmers often struggle to pay their workers fairly,’ he said. ‘Why are casual labourers there at all? There are wider issues here. We need to ask why this goes on and what we can do to help’.
Full Financial Times report