Coffee is the simple, everyday beverage that provides that much-needed boost of caffeine for getting through morning classes or late-night study sessions. But to farmers around the world, it's a lifeline.

MSU is standing up for fair paying practices with its decision to help improve the lives of those farmers by serving fair trade coffee in all of the residence halls on campus. By spending $15,000 more a year on coffee, University Housing is playing a part in nearly tripling the price farmers receive for their product. And for people who were making less than a dollar a day, that's a big deal.

Fair trade basically eliminates the middle men from the supply chain. Without fair trade, corporations can pay farmers extremely little for their coffee, then turn around and sell it to distributors for a large profit. This means that the farmers whose livelihoods depend on selling coffee stay poor, and the corporations buying it from them profit from their labor.

Fair trade provides a direct link between the farmer and the consumer. The coffee drinker ends up paying more, but the farmers receive fair prices for their product.

The benefits of fair trade extend far beyond the farmers. The consumer gets a much higher-quality brew. Fair trade coffee is gourmet coffee, which tastes much better than the generic bulk blend sold by non-fair trade organizations. The process to produce fair trade coffee also is more environmentally friendly.

And residence halls are not the only places you can get the world-changing brew. Project PEARL, MSU Professor Dan Clay's program to aid Rwandan farmers, is bringing fair trade Rwandan coffee to distributors throughout the East Lansing community. Outside of residence halls, fair trade coffee now is available at Sparty's Convenience Stores, the Kellogg Center, the Main Library Cyber Café and online at www.shop.msu.edu.

Clay and Bruce Haskell, food service coordinator for University Housing, should be commended for bringing fair trade coffee to campus. MSU got the ball rolling and many other institutions should follow the lead.