"Fair-trade" is certainly nice sounding brand name for a certification. While many of the ideas behind Fair Trade / Bird Friendly / Shade Grown / etc. certifications are good, many of the fees, policies, and politics make the systems counter-productive to a sustainable ethical improvement. For example, to be Fair Trade Certified, a coffee farm must pay the certifying agency several significant fees. Many poor farms cannot afford these fees, thus the poor farms cannot be labeled with the fair trade stamp. While some of our coffees happen to have fair-trade certification, we don’t label it as such because it gives an unfair marketing advantage to the farms that can afford the certification over the farms that cannot. We have been able to work directly with coffee farmers and processors to use arrangements were coffee from a specific farm is keep separate and we are able pay the farmer (usually who cannot afford a certification) substantially more for her/his coffee because of the transparency and quality. Fairer then "Fair-Trade".