Ballot For Fair Trade Coffee

In US local politics voters decide on proposals for law reform, not unlike in Australian referenda. However one town’s proposal stands out. In Berkeley, California, voters had the opportunity to decide on a ballot initiative requiring coffee houses to sell environmentally and politically correct brews.

The proposed law would make it a crime punishable by up to six months in jail to sell brewed coffee not certified as Fair Trade, organic or shade-grown. Fair Trade means farmers are assured equitable prices and shade-grown coffee is grown under trees that provide bird habitat and protect soil.

(From an original story by David Crary, AP National Writer)