CalWatch notes that the Ballot Propositions have now been posted on Berkeley's website. Going over the controversial Fair-Trade Coffee one, I noticed an interesting provision:

Every brewed coffee beverage sold or offered for sale by any business vendor in the City
of Berkeley shall be brewed solely from coffee beans that are either certified:
(1) Organic, or
(2) Fair-Trade, or
(3) Shade Grown, or
(4) a combination thereof.

But take careful note: you only have to be one! And if I'm a bitter Cafe owner forced to be ever-so socially responsible, I'm going to pick the cheapest one out there just to spit in Rick Young's face. So if this proposition passes, only one of these Mandatory Beans will become the standard in Berkeley: the cheapest one. So which is cheapest?

Fair-Trade is the easiest price to find out: they post it on their website. The minimum price is 1.26, but I found an article writing

TransFair, a nonprofit certifier of fair trade coffees, reports that it is currently paying to farming co-ops an average price of $1.26 per pound for conventionally grown coffee and $1.41 per pound for organically grown coffee.

Shade-Grown is a trickier price to find. Here's the criteria for it. Unlike the Fiat Price of the Economists down at TransFair, Shade-Grown acts on the 'Social Premium' principle. The idea is that rich-world consumers will pay more for socially responsible coffee, making the establishment of price floors unnecessary.

Organic Coffee is certified by the Department of Agriculture, unlike the previous two non-elected entities. It also works on the Social Premium idea, and is meant to keep Consumers free of mind-harming chemicals, pesticides, and genetic modifications.

So which will it be? All the more important because these three certifications work to different purposes. Organic is about consumer health, Shade-grown is about the Environment, and Fair-Trade about Coffee Farmer Incomes. Which is cheapest? Haven't found the data yet. A search on Yahoo for all three seemed to show Shade-grown as the cheapest available, but there's wide variations by region, etc. But one thing is certain: if this resolution passes, Berkeley's disgruntled coffee retailers will find the cheapest out there.


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