This logo is your assurance that your purchase of coffee meets Probe International's standards for organic and fair trade. Probe International, a federally registered Canadian Charity, was established in 1982 to aid the peoples of the developing world.
Probe International espouses good governance and trade, not aid, as indispensable to the successful development of a country.
Probe International relies on the existing certification programs established by FLO International (Fair Trade Labelling) organizations. Coffees that we sell as 'Fair Trade coffees' are all purchased from an organization endorsed by FLO.(Probe International is not a member of the FLO and it does not endorse FLO or the national organizations such a Transfair with witch FLO is affiliated - Probe International merely reports the findings of FLO- affiliates)
In the case of organic certifications, Prove International either relies on existing certification programs or independently determines, through its own researchers, that coffee farmers have produced organic crops.
Probe International's certification programs for Fair Trade and Organic coffees are designed to increase the market for these goods, and to reduce an unintended injustice that exist in other certifications programs. Most of the world's coffee growing regions produce only organic coffee because they cannot afford anything else. Coffee growers in Africa, for example, are to poor to afford the pesticides and fertilizers that many farmers in Latin America use. They also cannot afford to pay the certification costs. As a result, the world's poorest organic farmers - an overwhelming majority of the world's 25 million small coffee farmers - are being penalized for their poverty by being excluded from many certifications programs.
As a result of this exclusion, consumers in the west are being misled into thinking that most varieties of coffees are not organic when in fact, they are generally more organic that many coffees certified as organic - an organic certification often does not guarantee 100% organic. Probe international's certification programs benefit small farmers another way: By keeping certification costs down and quality up, two factors indispensable to increasing retail sales and therefore the profits that small farmers can earn. Unlike other certification programs, Probe International dos not charge Canada's small roasteries and merchants for certification of either Fair Trade or Organic coffees, allowing them to keep costs low and quality high.