For many of the past 30 years, small farmers have not been able to sell their coffee beans at a price that compensates them for their production costs. When coffee growing is no longer a viable profession, they must sell their land or find a different trade. Some farmers sell their land to large-scale coffee growers who quickly convert it to "sun" coffee methods. They cut down the rainforest canopy, and start using pesticides and fertilizers that can contaminate local soil and water. Other farmers may decide to convert their land to cattle pastures, which also means cutting down the rainforest, resulting in ecosystem decline and habitat loss for birds and other forest creatures.
To address the needs of small coffee farmers in today's global market, TransFair USA certifies coffee as "fairly traded" so that consumers can know that the farmer was paid a fair price. TransFair has determined that to simply cover the costs of production, coffee farmers need to receive about a dollar a pound for their coffee, more than twice what they can get on the global market in recent years. 
TransFair negotiates a price each year to ensure that farmers get a living wage, currently set at $1.26 a pound. The farmers who are part of the TransFair network of cooperatives are guaranteed this minimum price, and the "Fair Trade Certified" coffee you buy supports this "living wage" market.
Fair trade involves not just a fair price for coffee, but also dealing with democratically organized farm cooperatives, buying direct instead of through middlemen, and providing advance credit, a necessity which small growers have been traditionally denied. Moreover, fair trade premiums are often used to fund training in ecologically friendly growing methods and to enable farms to achieve organic certification.
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