Video:  55,000 Strong for Fair Trade

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Paul McCartney says…

“World Fair Trade Day is a great idea.  Fair Trade is essential for millions of people who work and struggle for survival everyday.  It’s all about justice and human rights.  So why don’t you join me in supporting World Fair Trade Day 09″

Please join us in celebrating World Fair Trade Day 2009 and help us set the record straight!  Everything is better when it’s fair.  On & around Saturday, May 9, you can join hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. and in over 80 countries to promote Fair Trade and campaign for trade justice together with farmers and artisans around the world .

In the U.S., we’re doing our part by setting the record straight. Please join workplaces, churches, synagogues, schools, businesses & neighbors as we help break last year’s World’s Largest Fair Trade Coffee Break.

Fair Trade supporters around the country will take a break and enjoy a cup of Fair Trade coffee, a bar of Fair Trade chocolate, bake a cake using Fair Trade sugar, join in a drum circle with Fair Trade musical instruments or participate in a game of soccer using Fair Trade soccer balls.  Be creative!

The Fair Trade Resource Network offers these great resources to make it fun and easy for you to participate:

1. visit our Events calendar
2. order free materials from our WFTD Toolkit
3. organize with the Fair Trade Break Action Guide
4. join the effort to reclaim the World’s Largest Fair Trade Coffee Break
5. learn more about Fair Trade

Click on World Fair Trade Day for more background details & resources.

Fair trade olive oil will hit the shops in 2009 as tourist numbers in Bethlehem reach their highest levels for a decade. Israeli and Palestinian officials report economic growth for the occupied territories of 4-5% and a drop in the unemployment rate of at least three percentage points. Palestinian farmers face barriers to carrying out normal agricultural activities caused through restrictions in movement and water shortages. Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: “We hope this will be the first of many more fair trade products coming from the world’s conflict zones and least-developed countries. If so, it will help to catalyze markets and make a real economic difference to the communities that need it most.”

It is understood that former Marks & Spencer managing director Lord Stone of Blackheath will head a delegation to the West Bank in February to explore the possibility of creating a Palestinian agricultural hub to improve economic conditions for the people there.

The development of olive oil is seen by agencies as an important source of food security, labor and cash. This year olive oil revenue is projected to contribute $123m to the fragile West Bank economy - 18 per cent of total agricultural production.

The development comes after a Palestinian investment conference held in London this month attended by Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair as well as a collection of financiers.
© Guardian News & Media 2008
Published: 12/27/2008

TransFair USA, the Oakland-based group that has certified everything from coffee and tea to bananas and flowers as being ethically produced, now is putting its seal on wines from Chile, Argentina and South Africa.

The wines - which are available nationwide this month at grocers and liquor stores nationwide, including Whole Foods Market [WFMI] and Sam’s Club - are a first for U.S. consumers.“You’re getting award-winning wine that has just fantastic quality that also has an incredibly uplifting effect on the lives of literally thousands of farmers and farm workers,” says Paul Rice, president and CEO of TransFair USA. “It’s a great product that also represents tremendous hope and pride.”

The fair trade movement has been established in Europe for decades - fair trade wines have been available there for five years - but is gaining momentum in the United States.

Last year, sales of fair trade products, passed $1 billion for the first time, according to TransFair and the Fairtrade Labelling Organization.

A Fair Trade Certified product means TransFair has determined that farmers got fair prices, workers got decent wages and the product was produced in an environmentally responsible manner.

Importers and retailers pay a premium - the wine premium is 10 cents per bottle - that is earmarked for community improvement, such as a new water system or educational scholarships.

Charles Redfield, senior vice president of fresh food for Sam’s Club, says fair trade products offer high quality and are popular with customers. Company buyers, meanwhile, see the benefits of the system firsthand.

“Once you go out and experience it as an individual, it changes your whole lens of sustainability.”

New wines include:

- Live-A-Little, from Stellar Organics in South Africa, at stores around the country, including Whole Foods Market, and Publix Super Markets, suggested retail $9.99.

- Wandering Grape, from Argentina and South Africa, available at Target for about $11.99.

- Neu Direction, from Argentina, available at Sam’s Clubs for about $10.

© Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Scotland could be a Fairtrade nation by next Christmas if the Scottish Government and other bodies acted, it has been claimed

Green MSP Robin Harper urged all public bodies to consider buying Fairtrade products when making purchases.The Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund has previously calculated that if the Holyrood administration spent 0.5% of its procurement budget according to Fairtrade principles, this would double the market in Scotland.

And Mr Harper said such a move could also benefit Malawi - a country Scotland has close links with - as much of the Fairtrade sugar sold in the UK comes from the African nation.

Mr Harper, a Lothians MSP, sad: “Buying Fairtrade is one of the best ways Scots can provide support with dignity for Malawi and other developing countries.

“Income received through Fairtrade projects supports education, health services, clean water and much, much more.

“If just one pound in every two hundred spent by the Scottish Government went on Fairtrade goods, the support Scotland provides to Fairtrade producers would double.”

He added: “It’s been more than two years since Scottish ministers committed to making Scotland a ‘Fairtrade nation’, an objective we wholeheartedly support … (and) 2009 must be the year the Scottish Government and others deliver on that ambition and make next Christmas sweeter for Fairtrade farmers around the world.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “All coffee, tea and sugar provided by Scottish Government hospitality is Fairtrade or ethically traded.

“Fairtrade and ethically traded coffee, tea, sugar and chocolate bars are also available in all Scottish Government staff restaurants.”

The Village Board is backing a campaign to declare Ballston Spa a “Fair Trade Town” by the standards of the international Fair Trade Towns movement.

“I think it’s truly the right thing to do. The principles and concepts of fair trade are admirable,” said Mayor John P. Romano.

The board passed a resolution Monday officially supporting fair trade, which seeks to ensure just compensation and fair practices in international trade with farmers and other trading partners in the developing world.

Fair trade certifications are applied most often to beverages and food grown in the developing world, including coffee, tea, chocolate and bananas, but fair trade standards can apply to any import.

The village would be the first community in the state to achieve the designation. To date, there are eight Fair Trade Towns in the United States, ranging from small but progressive towns like Amherst, Mass., to large cities like Milwaukee and San Francisco.

The designation has been promoted by Kim and Chris Anderson, who own Mango Tree Imports, a fair-trade shop selling imported goods on Route 50 just north of the village.

“We’re thrilled,” Kim Andersen said Tuesday, the day after the Village Board vote.

She said the effort is part of the growing fair-trade movement, which seeks fair compensation and sound environmental practices in production of many kinds of goods from the developing world.

“It’s really a quality of life issue for both the community and the farmers, producers and artisans in the developing world,” Andersen said.The Village Board resolution is just one of several steps needed before the Fair Trade Towns organization, started in Media, Pa., in 2006, will officially recognize the village, Andersen said.

Those steps include formation of a fair trade committee, which has already happened; the availability of fair trade products at businesses in the community; the use of fair trade products by community nonprofit organizations; a resolution from the local government; and media attention.

Andersen said most of the steps have already been achieved, but organizers are waiting for one more community nonprofit to declare its commitment to fair trade. They hope to have that by January.

“We still want one more community organization — like a church, for example — to say they will only deal in fair-trade coffee or tea,” Andersen said.

The fair-trade movement seeks greater equality in international trade, with fair prices paid to overseas workers, no exploitation of child labor and use of environmentally sustainable methods in producing products that can be fair-trade certified.

The Fair Trade Federation in Washington, D.C., says fair trade practices can help address the fact that 2.7 billion people in the developing world live on less than $2 a day. Fair trade sales in 2006 totaled $2.6 billion, it reported.

Her three-year-old enterprise, Yellow Label Kids, is a line of toys, clothing, accessories and party supplies that has been growing quickly with sales of as much as $200,000 anticipated for 2008.

All of the items she sells - in retail stores, online and by catalog - are made by women from two collectives in Bangladesh. Sciarillo designs all of the concepts and has patterns made and sent to the organizations.

The designs are geared for children age 3 and younger and are made by hand with cotton and natural materials, using non-toxic dyes.

“I wanted to work at home and make money while my child was sleeping,” Sciarillo said. “The birth of my son inspired me to market products for children and babies that would create an alternative to plastic.”

All of the items are washable, durable and tactile. They are designed to encourage children to use their imaginations.

The toys include Waldorf School-inspired dolls, a set of knitted cupcakes and a variety of hand puppets. Parents never have to worry about toxic substances like lead paint in their children’s playthings.

Sciarillo, 33, worked as a teacher in Novato after spending five years working in public relations in New York and said she was inspired by the Waldorf methods.

The women artisans that make the items are paid living wages under fair trade practices.

They learn skills such as knitting at the collectives and can have their children with them when they are working. Many are elderly or disabled and would not be able to travel long distances to factories as women in the area have done.

The collectives were started in 2001 and employ as many as 800 women, and produce goods for markets in Europe as well as the United States.

The collectives emphasize health and literacy programs to women who may have never learned to read or been treated by a health care professional.

“I love the idea of working with an organization that supports women and children,” Sciarillo said. “It feels great to produce products ethically and socially responsibly.”

Yellow Label Kids products have been available at Whole Foods stores and Pharmaca in Marin.

Debbie Coller, manager of Pharmaca in Mill Valley, said the store sold several of the items.

“They were really nice quality and cute,” Coller said.

The products range from $9 for rattles to $32 for cupcakes and up to $69 for blankets.

“I’ve tried to keep our products as reasonable as possible because I know there is a threshold for what people will spend - even for free-trade and organic,” Sciarillo said.

Contact Nancy Isles Nation via e-mail at nnation@marinij.com

In Lebanon, Noelle Marshall says people are warm and giving, that front doors are always open and children can go off on their own for several towns over. She takes these childhood principles and pours it into her new store, Petaluma’s first exclusively fair trade establishment.