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TIP: If a story moves you, use the comment feature for that story to write a response. Dialogue is a key to growing the movement!
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Jeff
 by Jeff Goldman
There has been active debate for years about how to set minimum prices for Fair Trade Certified products, such as coffee, the dominant FT commodity. A recent article in Time magazine’s October 5 issue, titled “What Price for Good Coffee? Fair Trade practices were created to help small farmers. But they may have hit their limits”, is the latest example of high profile concern.
The current worldwide Fair Trade Certified price of nonorganic coffee, as set by the Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO), is $1.35/lb., or 9 cents higher than the minimum price for the past few years. The current price is about 10% higher than the global market price.
Farmer advocates have urged FLO to raise prices to cover costs of production, or to a level that enables farmers to escape subsistence. The latter price would be around $2, according to researcher Christopher Bacon.
FLO and TransFair USA counter that a higher price would serve much fewer farmers, perhaps tens of thousands instead of millions as demand decreased. The labeling initiatives prefer to increase market share for more farmers rather than the returns for each farmer. Consumers, especially in an economic downturn, would be hesitant to pay even more for Fair Trade Certified products.
So, what minimum price strategies seem best to you for the short- and long-term for advancing Fair Trade Certified’s benefits to vulnerable farmers?
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Jeff
 By Zarah Patriana
I don’t need to drink the Kool-Aid to know that Michelle Obama is incredible. Princeton University for undergrad, Harvard for Law School, former associate at a law firm, a former Executive Director at the University of Chicago Hospitals, former Associate Dean at University of Chicago, proud mother of two daughters, First Lady of the United States and how could we forget her impeccable fashion sense and those arms. A strong, intelligent woman with credentials to back it up.
Yes, I’m a big fan of Mrs. Obama. So, when I heard about the campaign appealing to the First Lady to Fair Trade the White House I was immediately on board. The goal of the campaign is simple:
We are a grassroots, nonpartisan coalition of Fair Trade organizations, vendors, and consumers whose goal is to cordially invite First Lady Michelle Obama to join the Fair Trade movement by declaring the White House a “Fair Trade Home.”
Michelle already has a good record going at greening the White House. She’s got the White House kitchen serving only organic foods, started a garden on the South Lawn, pushed for the opening of a Farmer’s Market near the Executive Mansion and even has a colony of bees at the Presidential home providing the First Family and company with honey. So, if one of the main messages here is to encourage ethical and sustainable consumption, methinks that getting Fair Trade into the White House is an easy next step.
Setting the example of having Fair Trade products in the White House would send the message to the general public that their purchasing habits can “alleviate poverty, reduce inequality, and create opportunities for people to help themselves.”
If anyone can set a good example, it would be Michelle Obama. As the Atlantic recently said about her influence on the people, “It’s like her outfits. When she wears a J. Crew dress, everyone goes out and buys it. It’s going to be the same thing with kale.”
And if she can get people to buy more kale, certainly she can get more people to go Fair Trade.
So, I urge you all to join the campaign to invite the First Lady to Fair Trade the White House and let people know that people producing a product are treated fairly, paid fairly and are being fair to the environment. Learn more or take action at http://www.fairtradewhitehouse.com/index.htm
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Jeff
Canada, Australia and New Zealand commit to certifying Cadbury Dairy Milk as Fairtrade by early 2010
Combined with Britain and Ireland, the five markets will quadruple Fairtrade benefits for cocoa farmers under Fairtrade terms
Today, Cadbury extends its commitment to Fairtrade by confirming that three more markets are to receive Fairtrade certification for the flagship Cadbury Dairy Milk brand by early 2010. This move in Canada, Australia and New Zealand will bring the independent FAIRTRADE Mark into millions more homes in five of Cadbury’s key chocolate markets.
Read Cadbury’s full press release.
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Jeff
In the September 7, 2009, issue of Forbes Magazine, FT pioneer Ten Thousand Villages and its store in Center City Philadelphia are reported on. The article says that “Ten Thousand Villages has mastered the art of nurturing affluent customers as well as impoverished craftsmen.” Check out the full story at: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0907/creative-giving-ten-thousand-villages-grows-with-fair-trade.html
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Jeff
Despite the global recession, worldwide sales of Fair Trade Certified products grew by an impressive 22% in 2008 as consumers spent an estimated $4 billion on Fair Trade products globally. In the U.S., sales grew 10% to $1.06 billion, and in Canada, sales grew 67% to $180 million. The UK, after growth of 43%, has surpassed the U.S. for most FT sales by country, at $1.23 billion.
The main product areas of Fairtrade growth were in the following product categories: 1. Global sales have doubled for Fair Trade tea (112%) and for Fair Trade cotton products (94%); 2. As the products with the highest sales volumes, Fairtrade coffee sales increased 14% to 66,000 metric tons (MT) and the market for Fair Trade bananas grew by 28% to 300,000 MT.
Fair Trade sales grew by at least 50% in seven countries, including Australia and New Zealand (72%), Canada (67%), Finland (57%), Germany (50%), Norway (73%), and Sweden (75%). The largest markets for Fair Trade products continued to experience strong growth, as sales of Fair Trade certified products increased by 43% in the United Kingdom and 10% in the United States. Fair Trade products also gained popularity in a number of new markets, including in Eastern Europe, Eastern Asia, and South Africa.
As of the end of 2008, there were 746 Fair Trade Certified producer organizations representing over one million and a half individual farmers and workers. There are at least another 70,000 members of affiliated organizations that belong to Fair Trade certified producer groups that also benefit from Fair Trade, which include women’s groups and other groups not directly involved in the production of Fair Trade products, like cattle herders.
Source: Fairtrade Foundation, UK, Press Release
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Chicago Tribune Ann Meyer
Forget slashing prices. What picky shoppers want this holiday season are gifts with meaning.
So merchants are scouting for items that are environmentally or socially responsible, whether that means produced locally, often with recycled material, or made in accordance with fair trade standards, which require that workers are paid a living wage in safe conditions.
(more…)
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San Francisco Chronicle Freda Moon
El Cerrito resident Paul Rice stands at the edge of a dirt road, overlooking the volcanic peaks and adobe homes of this small Nicaraguan town near the border with Honduras.
“Twenty years ago, on this road - at this time of day, at this time of year - I would be worrying right now. You wouldn’t want to be here,” Rice said.
Rice arrived in Nicaragua in 1983 at a time when the U.S.-sponsored Contra war (1981-1988) was raging against the leftist government of the National Sandinista Liberation Front. A 23-year-old college graduate, he came to study land reform and cooperative organizations in the northern city of Chinandega. (more…)
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Reuters South Africa Robin Pomeroy
The world should hold a food summit in the first half of next year to seek fairer trade and help farmers in poor countries make a decent living, the head of the United Nations food agency said on Wednesday.
Jacques Diouf, head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said the summit would seek to reform trade, encourage greater food production in developing countries and ensure funding for infrastructure and agricultural productivity.
“I have just put the idea (of holding a food summit) to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama in my message of congratulations,” he told the body’s governing conference. (more…)
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New York Times Jill Santopietro
ON an island in the Napo River in Ecuador’s Amazonian rain forest, in a tin-roofed hut on stilts, live some of the world’s most unusual entrepreneurs.
César and Magdalena Dahua grow cacao, along with pineapples, vanilla, avocados, cassava, coffee, oranges and plantains. As they hack off the football-shaped fruit of the cacao trees, their three youngest daughters run barefoot nearby. The girls stop to suck the sticky white pulp that envelops the cacao beans in the pods. It tastes like Sour Patch candies. (more…)
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USA Today Brittney Bain
Halloween’s a time for pumpkins, costumes, and — if some faith-based groups have their way this year — global market awareness.
Faith organizations and congregations around the country are promoting fair-trade chocolate for trick-or-treaters to raise consciousness about conditions and prices for cocoa farmers around the world.
“This is an example of how everybody has the ability to make some change,” said Susan Burton, who works for the the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society in Washington. (more…)
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