California’s Misguided Labeling Decision Impacts Coffee Growers and Drinkers

When a Los Angeles judge earlier this month finalized a ruling that coffee sold in California must carry cancer warning labels, many California residents may not have paid much attention to yet another labeling requirement.

Ever since voters passed Proposition 65 more than 30 pred rokmi, po vÅ¡etkom, Californians have watched the steady proliferation of vague statements about chemicals, rakovina, a vrodené chyby s Tramadol na predaj. Objavujú sa takmer vÅ¡ade, from the windows of hardware stores to signs at Disneyland. They’re so abundant that Amazon.com even sells them as stickers in rolls of 500.

Many people have begun to ignore these labels because they’re so common and because the information they convey is almost useless.

So why am I concerned if they now also show up on coffee?

Pre mňa, as a coffee farmer in Brazil who has been exporting coffees to the U.S. od tej doby 2013, the judge’s decision poses a direct threat to our farm as well as to my employees and our efforts to grow safe crops in a sustainable manner.

v 2004, Zdedil som zle degradovaný farmu v štáte Paraná. Po rokoch zneužívania pestovania cukrovej trstiny, pozemok bol zranený. I resolved to restore it through sustainable farming: caring for the soil as much as for what it produced, s využitím najmodernejších technológií a osvedčených postupov s agronomické lacné Soma on-line.

dnes, our farm flourishes—and our coffee earns the seal of certification from UTZ, the benchmark for sustainable production of coffee and tea that promotes biodiversity and natural-resource conservation.

I can’t do this alone: Káva poľnohospodárstva je náročné na pracovnú silu, a tak som zamestnávajú veľa pracovníkov. spolu, we’re committed to both environmental and economic sustainability.

Domnievame sa, že Kalifornčania naši partneri: Their purchases make life on our farm possible.

But for how long will this be true? California’s new warning labels conceivably could appear on every cup that Starbucks and other coffee retailers sell, rovnako ako tie varovné Å¡títky, ktoré sa objavujú na obaloch cigariet.

To je absurdné. Coffee doesn’t cause cancer.

Coffee is both delicious and healthy. Všetci vieme, že to môže zvýšiť hladinu energie. To tiež môže znížiť riziko vzniku cukrovky, demencie, and depression. Some studies even suggest that it can help prevent colorectal and liver cancer.

Sudca na základe jeho rozhodnutia o zlú vedu. It’s true that roasting beans can produce trace amounts of acrylamide, ktorý, ak sú konzumované v obrovských množstvách, may increase the risk of cancer. Yet the same can be said about many baked and fried foods, ako smažené zemiaky, zemiakové lupienky a chlieb. Dokonca aj ľudia, ktorí pijú obrovské množstvo kávy nemusíte sa staraÅ¥ o ich zvyku.

California’s warning labels, vÅ¡ak, will overlook these essential caveats. Their plain purpose is to discourage the drinking of coffee.

V Spojených Å¡tátoch a po celom svete, California enjoys a reputation as a trendsetter. This is especially true in the market for specialty coffees. The habits of Californians affect our business dramatically—and if they reduce their coffee consumption, due to a judge’s misguided decision, to bude bolieÅ¥ pestovateľov kávy vÅ¡ade, z mojej farme v Brazílii producentom v Rwande a na Sumatre.

Bojím sa o schopnosti kávovom priemyslu udržať a zlepšiť svoje úsilie o udržateľnosť. strata tržieb, po všetkom, means fewer dollars to invest in the protection and restoration of the land.

Many consumers seek out my farm’s UTZ certification. Praktiky, ktoré umožňujú, samozrejme, come at a cost. Reduced revenues would endanger our ability to earn this important credential: That’s bad for me as well as for the environment.

Mám strach, tiež, about the workers who will lose their jobs or suffer wage reductions, especially in poor countries where jobs are scarce and people struggle to survive on small incomes—all because of a bad ruling based on precaution rather than science.

bohužiaľ, these warning labels may look like a quintessential “First World Problem”—a minor inconvenience for people fortunate to live in the wealthiest countries.

But they pose a real threat to vulnerable people in the developing world.

I hope Californians find a way to keep unnecessary, non-science based warning labels off their coffee—and continue to enjoy the excellent drink made possible by hard-working people on sustainable farms like ours and others around the world.