HOW MUCH DOES a Latin American farmer typically get for the $10 bag of gourmet beans you pick up at Starbucks? Maybe 40 cents. Supporters of “fair trade” want to change that. And next Monday, they plan to show up at Starbucks’ annual shareholders’ meeting at Benaroya Hall in order to get their point across.

The effort is being coordinated by Global Exchange, a San Francisco organization that was one of the principle instigators of the WTO protests. (Their members scaled the Old Navy building and created a disturbance inside the Ministerial press room, among other actions.) Jason Mark of Global Exchange says his group has located some Starbucks shareholders who will raise the “fair trade” issue during the meeting’s question-and-answer session, and he says his members will be “aggressively educating” other shareholders on the subject as well as providing samples of fairly traded coffee.

Global Exchange hopes to convince Starbucks to purchase at least 5 percent of its coffee through fair-trade channels. Under fair trade, big importers work directly with farmer cooperatives, insuring that more of the purchase price goes to the grower rather than middlemen. Fairly traded coffee has established itself in Europe, but US companies have so far shown little interest. “It’s a matter of consumer choice,” says Mark. “People should be able to purchase coffee that’s free of exploitation.” In the wake of the WTO, that marketing message may have additional resonance.

Paul Rice of TransFair USA, which monitors and certifies fairly traded goods, says he has been in discussions with Starbucks for about nine months but has seen little progress. “Our goal is to redefine the meaning of quality,” he says. Just as Starbucks led the way in giving consumers a taste for superior beans, he wants to see the company help set “the next major standard”—which would be to consider coffee’s social and environmental impact.