International years are declared by the United Nations to draw attention to and encourage action on major issues. The International Year of Cooperatives is intended to raise public awareness of the invaluable contributions of cooperative enterprises to poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration. The Year will also highlight the strengths of the cooperative business model as an alternative means of doing business and furthering socioeconomic development. For a full list of activities, resources and calendar at the UN’s website.
According to the Oversees Cooperative Development Council, “Cooperatives are a fundamental part of the Fair Trade movement in that the majority of Fair Trade producers are members of various cooperatives. Cooperatives provide a support network for small farmers because they exist for their members by being
democratically run, return profits to the producers, and provide technical training. These goals are very similar to the goals and standards of Fair Trade.
Take a look at the 2012 International Year of the Coop Video below:
Last week, hundreds of Fair World Project activists took action, urging President Obama to postpone implementation of the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed in October 2011. The Colombia FTA was signed under the conditions that the reforms in the Labor Action Plan be implemented before the FTA takes effect. The murder of four Union Leaders just this past January is a clear indication that little progress has been made in Colombia and that there remain grave Labor Rights violations.
Despite widespread opposition to the Colombia FTA by farmers, unions and consumers, President Obama announced over the weekend that the Colombia FTA will be implemented next month. For a perspective on the impact the Colombia FTA will have on trade unionists in Colombia, read this letter from Teamster John Walsh to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.
President Obama’s support for the Colombia FTA comes on the The Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement is likely to impact jobs, wages, agriculture, migration, the environment, access to medicine, consumer safety, banking regulations, indigenous rights, Internet freedom, government procurement and more. A pact this far-reaching should be negotiated in the most transparent and participatory manner possible.
Looking to go further on the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement?
Back room trade deals benefit big corporations at the expense of working people. We need your help demanding that U.S. officials move the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement negotiations into the light of day.
The Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (sometimes called the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP) is a massive new trade deal for the Pacific Rim. After eleven major rounds of negotiations, the United States has reportedly introduced proposals for most, if not all, of an estimated 26 separate chapters for this pact — proposals that will likely affect jobs, wages, agriculture, migration, consumer safety, the environment, financial regulations, internet freedom, access to medicine, indigenous rights, public procurement and more in our communities and throughout the world.
Despite the far-reaching nature of the Trans-Pacific FTA, the U.S. Trade Representative has refused to release any of its negotiating proposals for public scrutiny. One corporate trade attorney with decades of experience in international trade negotiations recently gloated that, “This is the least transparent trade negotiation I have ever seen.” That isn’t right and has to change.
What’s even worse, however, is that while you, I and the majority of Americans are barred from knowing what’s taking place in the Trans-Pacific FTA negotiations, approximately 600 corporate lobbyists have been named “cleared advisors,” giving them regular access to the negotiating documents and negotiators.
This type of back-room deal making is unacceptable in a democracy, and it is even outside of the norm for international trade negotiations. Even the World Trade Organization (WTO) publishes its draft negotiating proposals online for public review and comment.
Please sign our online petition urging U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to publicly release the negotiating proposals for the Trans-Pacific FTA. You can take further action by downloading a PDF of the petition and circulating it among your friends, co-workers and colleagues. The petitions will be delivered to U.S. trade negotiators prior to the start of the next negotiating round, widely rumored to take place in the United States in May.
You deserve the right to know what U.S. trade negotiators are negotiating in your name. Please take action now.
While governments, scientists, civil society and others convened at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the U.N.’s weather agency reported that 2011 was the 10th hottest year since records began in 1850. Though politicians and pundits may still debate the origins and impacts of climate change, there is a general consensus in the scientific community that we are experiencing a significant shift in the earth’s climate. This shift has particular significance for people living in the developing world and those who depend primarily on both subsistence and commercial agriculture for their livelihoods. Farmers are on the frontlines of climate change and are confronted with daily evidence, facing ever chaotic and extreme weather conditions.
2011 marked a flashpoint for many small farmers and fair trade producers. Fair trade producers from Mexico and Colombia to Ghana and Indonesia experienced a record number of climate change influenced disasters, including landslides, severe floods and crop failure. According to Fairtrade International (FLO), fair trade farmers are experiencing up to 28% reductions in yield due to erratic weather patterns and droughts. Small farmers, already vulnerable from a lack of financing options, limited market access and/or volatile markets, among other factors, are now faced with lower yields, “natural” disasters and higher costs to adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts.
Climate change is impacting specific crops in very specific ways. A recent report by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) detailed how a significant percentage of Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two biggest cocoa producing countries, will be too hot for cocoa by 2030. Compounded by erratic and unpredictable weather patterns, flooding and new pests, cocoa and cocoa producers have a very bleak future. Sadly, this pattern is replicated in other crops like coffee. Coffee producing regions are experiencing a dangerous combination of lower rainfall and higher temperatures, which some speculate will render production unsustainable in lowland countries and regions by 2050. While coffee plants may be able to adapt to higher altitudes in search of cooler temperatures, small farmers are tied to their land, both historically and financially. The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) work with the Global Climate Change Initiative recently published a study that analyzed a number of intersections of climate change, poverty and agriculture. Key to the study is an index of “country vulnerability” with many of the countries with significant fair trade presences ranked as “extremely” vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change.
Size matters: small farmers are key to combating climate change
Global trends in farming point towards an increasingly large-scale and industrialized approach to farming. The last century has seen a significant transformation of the global food system away from locally-based, family-scaled farms towards large industrial farms. Gone are the days of family-scaled farmers providing food and fiber to their local communities. The global food system is now largely dominated by multinational corporations, exploitative conditions for farmers and farmworkers and chemical dependent agriculture.
Large-scale, industrial agriculture is a primary contributor to climate change. According to author and farmer Will Allen, the “combination manufacture and use of pesticides and fertilizers, fuel and oil for tractors, equipment, trucking and shipping, electricity for lighting, cooling, and heating, and emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide account for approximately 30% of the United States’ carbon footprint.” The US-styled energy intensive approach to agriculture, not only adopted by many industrialized countries but also exported to underdeveloped countries, ironically contributes to food insecurity or the ability of a given country or community to feed itself.
Impoverished countries and communities have long experienced varying degrees of food insecurity. As renowned NGO, Food First, has detailed, the underlying causes of hunger are largely attributable to poverty, inequality and failed institutions, not scarcity, overpopulation or a lack of technological fixes. The last five years– collapsing financial markets, the global push agriculture fuels (biofuels, like ethanol) and the expansion of speculation of the food market—have been the near “perfect storm” for small farmers. With close to 1 billion victims of malnourishment in 2011, it is clear that the industrial agriculture model is a failure.
However, there is hope. Despite the strong global tide towards industrial agriculture, small farmers, who not only form the backbone of the global food supply, are central players in safeguarding biodiversity, fostering environmental stewardship and innovating sustainable agricultural practices. According to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, small farmers hold the key to doubling food production while mitigating climate change and alleviating rural poverty. Similarly, Via Campesina, the global movement of millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, has demonstrated that small farmers can address the global food crisis in a far more equitable and sustainable way than agribusiness and large-scale farming.
Fair Trade: An Antidote?
Fair trade is a social movement and market model that aims to empower small-scale farmers and consumers in underdeveloped countries to create an alternative trading system that supports equitable exchange, sustainable development and long-term trading relationships. Fair trade supports fair prices and wages for producers, safe working conditions, investment in community development projects and the elimination of child labor, workplace discrimination and exploitation.
What is unique about the fair trade system is its ability to channel financial resources and technical support for small producers. A key benefit of the system includes a social premium that farmers use for use in their local communities and farms. Though the fair trade social premiums can be used for virtually any project that benefits the local community, fair trade producers are increasingly using the fair trade premium for environmentally focused projects. For example, Coocafe, a coffee co-operative in Costa Rica, used its fair trade premium to greatly reduce the amount of water wasted on washing the beans allowing for other farmers to plant trees around their crop as shade, which is good for the quality of their crop and for the environment. In India, tea workers have invested some of their fair trade premium to replace traditional wood-burning heating with a solar-panels.
Fair trade standards can also positively contribute to improving energy efficiency on the farm and throughout the supply chain. Fair trade standards encourages fair trade producers and traders to implement measures to improve water conservation, energy efficiency, eco-system management and waste management.
With a strong majority of fair trade producers also either certified organic or practicing organic and agroecological methods, fair trade producers can both significantly improve yields and mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. A landmark study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology found that organic and agroecological farming practices increased productivity on 12.6 millions farms, with an average crop increase of 79%, while at the same time improving the supply of critical environmental services. According to Food First Executive Eric Holt-Giménez, following Hurricane Mitch in 1998, a large-scale study on 180 communities of smallholder farms in Nicaragua demonstrated “that farming plots cropped with simple agroecological methods (including rock bunds or dikes, green manure, crop rotation and the incorporation of stubble, ditches, terraces, barriers, mulch, legumes, trees, plowing parallel to the slope, noburn, live fences, and zero-tillage) had, on average, 40 per cent more topsoil, higher field moisture, less erosion and lower economic losses than control plots on conventional farms. On average, agroecological plots lost 18% less arable land to landslides than conventional farms and had 69% less erosion compared to conventional farms.”
When it comes to reversing climate change, organic agriculture can, in fact, play an important role. According to the Rodale Institute, organic farming practices can not only sequester 7,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per acre per year, , but organic agriculture can also can boost yields significantly. According to the 2008 edition of Waste Management & Research, simple composting not only increases crop yield and replaces dangerous and greenhouse gas emitting synthetic fertilizers, but also sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. Many fair trade organizations have also invested in regional and local composting operations as an effective method to increase soil fertility, boost yield and sequester carbon.
Fair trade alone cannot address climate change, nor the daunting challenges confronting farmers on a daily basis. The planet will need a concerted effort to address the root causes of climate change with a comprehensive approach to energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Small farmers in the fair trade system can, however, improve farmers’ likelihood of mitigating climate change’s negative impacts, showcase local innovations for reversing climate change, and provide one opportunity for Northern consumers to support farmers in a concrete way.
Tags: climate change, Fair Trade
An initiative of The World Fair Trade Organization (www.wfto.com), World Fair Trade Day is an annual global celebration occurring each May. Celebrations bring consumers and businesses, nonprofit organizations, churches, student groups, and advocates together to host thousands of events worldwide.
Fair World Project is celebrating World Fair Trade Day by organizing a joint promotion with some of our favorite mission driven brands that are dedicated to fair trade throughout their entire supply chains. Brands include: Alaffia, Alter Eco, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, Equal Exchange, Guayaki Yerba Mate, and Maggie’s Organics. Look for special promotions from these manufacturers at natural product retailers this May.
Win a Fair Trade Adventure for Two!
We’re also offering you a chance to Enter to Win a Fair Trade Adventure for Two to Sri Lanka with Intrepid Travel. The trip includes a visit to Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps coconut oil facility. The Sweepstakes opens for submissions on March 15 2012.
We’ve produced For a Better World, a great educational video about fair trade principles showcasing all the good work Alaffia, Alter Eco, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, Equal Exchange, Guaykai Yerba Mate, and Maggie’s Organics do. Watch it below!
To: Fair Trade Movement Leaders
Re: Mission Driven Companies working with farmers on fair trade terms, where farmers are organized short of formal co-ops.
Dear All:
I just listened and watched “Should Unorganized Farmers Be Included in Fair Trade?” an FTRN webinar with Rodney North of Equal Exchange and Michael Sheridan of Catholic Relief Services. Rodney makes the case that FT should equal co-ops only and Michael doesn’t advocate particularly strongly otherwise beyond noting that functioning farmer co-ops don’t exist in many regions of the world or in various commodities, and also noting farmers can still be organized even if not in formal co-ops.
The context within which this debate is occurring is of course FTUSA’s announcement that they will allow small holder farmers not organized in formal co-ops as well as plantations to produce certified fair trade coffee and cocoa under revised FTUSA standards. Not to pick on FTUSA although they are the weakest and lamest, as FLO already does this with other non-coffee/cocoa commodities and IMO’s Fair for Life program does as well.
On the plantation issue, I share the opinion of many in the leadership community that while ethically run plantations that provide fair wages and working conditions for workers are admirable, that “fair trade” at the farming level means doing business first and foremost with smallholder farmers who own their own farms. Note “hired labor” is still super crucial in fair trade as smallholder farmers employ farm labor, and post-farm processing is all about hired labor that needs to meet fair trade criteria. However at the farming level many in the fair trade community see smallholder/family farm ownership as essential for “fair trade” farming.
However Rodney also advocates that smallholder/family farmers not organized in co-ops should similarly be excluded from participating in fair trade. For example the graphic noted at 9:33 makes individual fair trade “farming” (ie. independent ownership of and farming of land to produce goods to sell to willing buyers on fair trade terms), look like a tiny part of the FT equation, with democratically controlled co-op functions of collection, processing and selling being the vast majority. Tyson is noted as the extreme “sharecropping” example of what can happen without farmer co-ops.
In deference to Rodney, he is talking primarily about coffee where there are already plenty of FT co-ops and oversupply of FT coffee versus demand. I entirely agree with Rodney where there are already well-managed well-functioning co-ops in a given commodity producing a surplus. But Rodney and Michael are also talking about traditional fair trade commodities, coffee and cocoa, where the primary processing and marketing to the West are comparatively simple and may well be managed by a co-op experienced with the respective processing chain while meeting the demands of Western customers. However in the developing world there are numerous situations where co-ops able to supply the desired value-added materials either don’t exist or are dysfunctional (such as communist bureaucratic cronyism not particularly representative of members). Dr. Bronner’s, in search for fair trade supplies of our key ingredients found this to be the case in Sri Lanka for coconut oil, Ghana for palm oil, Com’caac Indian land for jojoba oil, Uttar Pradesh for mint, etc. In such cases, if a mission based company is willing to work directly with independent farmers and local processing partners on fair trade terms, and invest in often complex technically demanding processing infrastructure in order for a fair trade relationship to happen that would not occur otherwise, then that is fair trade. The mission driven company has the responsibility, as demanded by certification programs such as IMO’s Fair for Life, to facilitate the farmers to organize, and resolve with farmers’ democratic organizations whether farmers or the company are responsible for collection and transport. Farmers at all times should be free whether or not to sell to the mission driven partner or whoever else.
Mission driven companies that develop and partner with a given project on the ground (i.e. where the project is based) are dedicated to using and marketing those farmer’s products, which is the ultimate prerequisite for the project’s sustainability and realization of the benefits of fair trade. In contrast, even dedicated FT brands may buy ten different kinds of coffee and another ten unrelated FT commodities from different farmer projects. Co-ops in the developing world are generally poorly equipped to effectively market and move value-added fair trade volume for their farmer projects, even for little-processed raw materials. This results in the current situation of many co-ops not realizing long-term market access and thus any significant value-added fair trade sales volume. This failed promise of market access to small-holder coops is one of the problems with existing fair trade rules which IMO’s Fair for Life program in particular addresses, by recognizing the crucial role a mission driven partner can play that focuses day in day out on creating sustainable valued added fair trade sales for a given farmer project. Regardless if that partner is a non-profit or for-profit, the important criteria is not its corporate structure (co-op, non-profit, for-profit), but whether it transparently adheres to and is certified against fair trade criteria in performing its mission. There are corrupt non-profits and fantastic for-profits, the proof is in the pudding. This in particular is what IMO’s Fair for Life program accomplishes: it certifies that mission driven partners are dedicated to fair trade throughout all their product lines and major supply chains, and that fair trade lite fair wash entities such as Nestle cannot earn a fair trade “halo.”
Definitely this issue is contentious, and the FT movement should debate. We would like to see the movement recognize the crucial role that a mission driven partner company can play in bringing the benefits of fair trade to unorganized farmers in a given region, for example Cannaan Fair Trade’s model in Palestine. However, since we share many of the concerns motivating Rodney’s position, we would like to see the FT movement also constrain the criteria within which the mission driven company operates.
It’s important to distinguish mission driven companies like Canaan Fair Trade, and Dr. Bronner’s subsidiary companies Serendipol in Sri Lanka and Serendipalm in Ghana, that are situated within a producing region and are dedicated to producing and marketing that particular farmer group’s products, from FT brands in the west (including Dr. Bronner’s and Equal Exchange) who are not focused on moving bulk volume to other businesses versus marketing their own diverse fair trade product lines sold at retail. Dr. Bronner’s invests in and sets up independent mission driven companies on the model of Canaan Fair Trade, that sets up post-farm processing facilities in the producing area of a given farmer project, to produce value added oils entirely from the farmers in the project, to market to western buyers including but not exclusive to Dr. Bronner’s. While we appreciate efforts to help set up third world co-ops to handle their own fair trade marketing and selling, more often than not this will not translate into significant volume or sales into value added FT markets. Enshrining the principle that developing world farmers must set up and utilize a co-op to self-market versus freely choosing to partner with a dedicated fair trade mission based company (whether for-profit or non-profit) who does dedicated business with those farmers on fair trade terms, is self-defeating to the FT movement. It limits its growth potential to the traditional FT commodities and frustrates the mission-driven companies who are willing to invest in a rural situation and develop complex supply chains and support community development along with it.
When we made a company priority to source all our major materials from certified fair trade sources, we found only one existing fair trade project– olive oil from Canaan Fair Trade in Palestine (and a much smaller project in Israel working with Arab Israeli producers, Sindyanna). Canaan was already a member of the FTF and fair trade in every sense of word, working in a very difficult region of the world to organize farmers and export olive oil on fair trade terms, succeeding where well-intentioned but poorly run nonprofits had not. We have followed Canaan’s example in working with farmers to set up fair trade projects for our other major raw materials in commodities where none existed previously anywhere in the world. I wrote an article that appeared in For a Better World’s inaugural issue giving a good overview of our history and accomplishments in that regard: http://fairworldproject.org/modx/assets/files/Pages%20from%20Fair_world_publication_17_18.pdf
We agree with Rodney that fair trade should be “transformative and capacity building”. Our experience with setting up and operating fair trade projects in several countries shows that the organization of the farmers in co-ops is not a sine qua non nor does it guarantee such a transformation. If one wants to leave as much of the value-addition in the producer country as possible, the complex supply chains that must be built for example for the production of coconut oil, palm oil and other food grade commodities, involve stakeholders beyond the small-holder farmers. In addition to farm workers, who even small holders routinely engage for harvesting, weeding, pruning and collecting, a production infrastructure must be established that may involve hundreds of skilled and unskilled workers and must meet quality standards that are expected by the ultimate user in the West. To expect that a preexisting or newly formed co-op can easily rise to the financial, technical and managerial challenges of such an operation is in our experience unrealistic. Nor is it guaranteed that a farmer coop, whose primary interest is after all the representation of the farmers, will be committed to the well-being of the other stakeholders in a complex value chain. Finally, our experience with several small-holder fair trade projects where farmers are organized short of formal co-ops demonstrates that such projects can achieve just the kind of significant transformation Rodney refers to.
Anyway, we understand the concern that Nestle will vertically integrate and capture farmers and turn them into “sharecroppers” and still be able to call it fair trade. We need to constrain the criteria under which mission driven companies or NGOs operate in partnership with FT projects. However at the same time let’s not ignore the massive fair trade benefits that mission driven companies like Canaan Fair Trade, Serendipol and Serendipalm are realizing for fair trade farmers across the globe in non-traditional FT commodities, or purport to call this less than fair trade.
I look forward to hearing other perspectives and continuing this discussion with the fair trade community at large.
Sincerely,
David Bronner
On January 18, due to a pressure campaign that included over 2000 letters from our supporters, and our statement declaring that we would no longer recognize FTUSA as a reputable certifier as of January 1st 2012 unless key provisions in the policy were corrected FTUSA, issuing a revised draft of their multiple ingredients product policy, which addresses some of our concerns but not all. See our statement here. We will continue to lobby FTUSA until all of our concerns are addressed. They have opened the issue to a 60 public comment period. Please send them a letter urging them to re-revise their policy.
Also on the TransFair (Fair Trade USA) front, we are extremely concerned over their new “Fair for All” initiative, which would include plantations in their certification of fair trade production, further jeopardizing small, farmer-owned cooperatives by forcing them to compete with huge plantations and effectively killing their one market advantage—ethical production processes—and further decreasing their market share of coffee, tea, and sugar commodities production.
Equal Exchange is urging people to sign on to their public statement denouncing FTUSA’s attack on the fair trade movement. Please read and sign their statement, then pass this information on.
On the positive side of fair trade news, the Fair Trade Resource Network is bringing us the “Best in Fair Trade” Awards. You have until March 31st to nominate your favorite fair trade organization. Any one can nominate. For more information please see the FTRN website.
Take Action! Send a letter to Fair Trade USA, Fairtrade International and IMO and urge them to continue supporting small coffee farmers by not certifying plantation coffee.
Fair Trade USA (formerly TransFair USA) and its new initiative, Fair Trade For All, aims to expand fair trade certification to include coffee plantations. “Fair Trade for All” has been a major point of contention in Fair Trade USA’s split from Fairtrade International (FLO). For more on the Fair Trade USA/FLO split, see Fair World Project’s (FWP) statement. Putting aside the secretive and unilateral nature of the initiative, certifying coffee plantations has a number of critical problems.
Small producers and democratic cooperatives are core to the founding principles of the fair trade movement and market. By definition, small producers are vulnerable, excluded and under resourced in the global market. In the coffee sector, small farmers produce approximately 70% of the global coffee supply. Despite the current high prices in the coffee market, fair trade coops are still unable to sell the majority of their coffee under fair trade terms. Expanding fair trade certification and market access to large-scale plantations will assure that fair trade cooperatives continue to remain vulnerable to volatile international markets and undermine 25 years of fair trade development.
Fair Trade vs Fair Labor
“Fair Trade for All” unfortunately is becoming a divisive issue, pitting small producers against farmworkers. Prominent farmworker leaders have endorsed the initiative, despite the overwhelming rejection of Fair Trade for All from fair trade producer networks, the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) and United Students for Fair Trade. No one in the fair trade movement denies that farmworkers at home and abroad need support and market solidarity. There are infinite examples of deplorable working conditions for agricultural workers in every sector. The question is whether “fair trade” is the appropriate model for addressing hired labor in agricultural contexts. FLO has certified fair trade plantations in a number of specific product categories, like tea and bananas, despite resistance from small producer groups and Aternative Trade Organizations. Fair trade has a mixed record on plantations and hired labor operations, including the tea and banana sector. Complicating matters further, coffee plantation workers are largely seasonal workers, with many workers not returning to the same plantation where they’ve worked the season prior. Assuring that the social premium in fact benefits these workers and that the workplace is operated democratically in the absence of a workers association or union is challenging at best. Perhaps “Fair Labor” certification is a more appropriate approach to supporting farm workers, while keeping fair trade standards, impacts and expectations intact.
“Fair Labor” certification assures a safe workplace, equitable wages and adherence to labor laws. A far labor certification is far more appropriate for hired labor scenarios, as it and does not dilute fair trade as a standard, nor a concept. In fact, there are several existing fair labor 3rd party certifiers and standards, including Scientific Certification Services Fair Labor program and IMO’s “For Life” program. Or might certifiers look to an effective model adopted by anti-sweatshop advocates that include a code of conduct and monitored by an organization like the Workers Rights Consortium.
Voting with our dollars
FTUSA has stated that coffee from fair trade cooperatives and “fair trade” plantations will be virtually identical to consumers, bearing the same “Fair Trade Certified” mark. Indeed, FTUSA does not currently distinguish between small farmer coops and plantations for tea and bananas. Small coffee producers will have no way of distinguishing their product in a meaningful way when compared to plantation coffee, which will be presumably sold at a lower price, given that large-scale plantation operations can take advantage of economies of scale, market access and existing capacity. Plantations and estates already have a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Similarly, consumers wishing to continue supporting small farmers and coops will be unable to simply “look for the label.”
Small is Indeed Beautiful
Paul Rice recently stated in an interview, “In our view, small is not beautiful.” FTUSA’s “Fair Trade for All” claims to be innovating the fair trade model, but appears to be responding primarily to the demands of large coffee roasters and importers, like Green Mountain and Starbucks, not the needs and realities of coffee producers on the ground. According to FTUSA’s most recent audited financials, Green Mountain and Starbucks account for approximately one-third of FTUSA’s lincensee revenues, not to mention are major donors to FTUSA. Taking a step back, history, not to mention existing data, demonstrate that real sustainability is small, but with a big impact. Small farmers form the backbone of not only the global food supply, but are central players in safeguarding biodiversity, fostering environmental stewardship and innovating sustainable agricultural practices. According to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, small farmers hold the key to doubling food production while mitigating climate change and alleviating rural poverty. Similarly, Via Campesina, the global movement of millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, has demonstrated that small farmers can address the global food crisis, in a far more equitable and sustainable way than agribusiness and large-scale farming.
Fair trade veteran advocates, including the Organic Consumers Association, and its recently launched Fair World Project (FWP), have long agitated and encouraged large roasters like Starbucks to source more fair trade coffee. Deepening and expanding the positive impact of fair trade to more small producers is central to our mission. Assuring however, that impact is equitable, sustainable and democratic remains the lynchpin in FWP’s approach to fair trade. We are encouraged by the interest of large, conventional manufacturers, roasters and importers in fair trade. However, strengthening, not diluting, the model at this crossroads in the movement to incorporate these powerful players is the challenge.
Stepping back even further, FTUSA’s recent actions largely reflect a crisis in governance and dysfunctional operating infrastructure. Had FTUSA’s board of directors truly reflected the constellation of voices and perspectives in the fair trade movement (including producers, advocates, ATOs, students, etc.), we doubt that Fair Trade For All would have provoked such widespread condemnation. FTUSA would have been a better steward of fair trade had it surveyed the fair trade community as a whole prior to moving forward with its plans to certify for large-scale plantations in an inclusive and transparent process, rather than request comments on the initiative after the fact. If FTUSA choses to enter the global system as an independent and reputable certifier, it must establish transparent and effective mechanisms for stakeholder engagement, and be accountable to that process. Abandoning its plans to certify coffee plantations would be a positive first step in righting the course.
FTUSA is moving forward with “fair trade” certification of coffee plantations in 2012. IMO’s Fair for Life standards are scale neutral and allows for certification of hired labor operations in any sector, though IMO has yet to certify coffee plantations. Fairtrade International (FLO) does not currently certify coffee plantations, though is under pressure to expand plantation certification to coffee and other sectors.
Take Action! Send a letter to Fair Trade USA, Fairtrade International and IMO and urge them to continue supporting small coffee farmers by not certifying plantation coffee.
Fair Trade Organizations, Stores, Companies: Sign-on by sending an email to ryan@fairworldproject.org
Tags: fair labor, fairwash, FLO, Plantation, TransFair USA
The Occupy Wall Street phenomenon has take the nation and world by storm. Frustrated with the inequitable distribution of wealth in the United States and vast corruption of the political process by corporate interests. Food justice advocates have done a fantastic job of connecting current injustices within the global economy and the inequities within the food system. Siena Chrisman piece in Civil Eats sums it up pretty nicely, “The connection of the protests with food, of course, runs from the local to the global, the specific to the ephemeral. Food justice advocates are connecting with Occupy sites all around the country to donate fresh, healthy, local food or to help find kitchen space. On a broader philosophical level, as Mark Bittman writes in the Times, “Whether we’re talking about food, politics, healthcare, housing, the environment, or banking, the big question remains the same: How do we bring about fundamental change?” But there are also clear and specific reasons that all of us working for a just and fair food system, as the food movement should make the connection between our work and Occupy Wall Street explicit and strong.”
The Organic Consumers Association have made the critical connection between genetic engineering, food safety and corporate control of the food supply. Reporting on grassroots focus on Monsanto and the Occupy movement, “Robert Strype, 29, a protester from the Poughkeepsie, N.Y., area who was wearing a T-shirt that expressed his displeasure with Monsanto, said that anger about practices like factory farming and the genetic modification of vegetables was one of the factors that had roused him and some of his fellow occupiers. ‘Food plays a huge part in this movement,’ he said. ‘Because people are tired of being fed poison.’” - “Want to Get Fat on Wall Street? Try Protesting” – Jeff Gordinier, New York Times
Fair traders as well have shown their solidarity and support of the Occupy movement. Equal Exchange has released a statement in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement, expressing “Reckless investment bankers have gambled livelihoods away. Outsourcing, offshore tax havens and free trade agreements have contributed to the intolerable number of unemployed. Corporate lobbyists and their revolving door regulators have weakened health and safety protections and throttled the labor unions counted on by so many to defend living standards. Agribusiness consolidation and control of the food system has devastated family farms while contributing to the obesity epidemic across the country. And the steady disinvestment in public services and education has placed the American dream beyond reach for millions.”
Interrupcion* fair trade has shown their support, with their statement below.
Tags: Equal Exchange, Fair Trade, interrupcion, Monsanto, Occupy
The answer sadly is yes, and soon. Fair Trade USA’s recent departure from FLO is ushering in a new era of fair trade standards and policies with major implications for fair trade producers, businesses and consumers. As FTUSA’s graphic explains below, a product need contain only 11% certified fair trade ingredients to carry the Fair Trade Certified (Ingredients) label. To carry the Fair Trade Certified mark, a product must contain only 25% certified fair trade ingredients. So Hershey’s, a perennial target for shirking corporate responsibility and fair trade (see Raise the Bar campaign), could place the FTUSA mark on their chocolate bars with no certified fair trade cocoa. For example, Hershey’s could source only fair trade sugar for their chocolate bar, but no fair trade cocoa, and still carry the FTUSA mark. So much for FTUSA “raising the bar.”
Tags: chocolate, cocoa, Fair Trade USA, Hershey's