Help keep the “Fair” in Fair Trade

           I recently finished a five-college tour with indigenous leader, Emilia Laime, talking about her participation in Fair Trade and the challenges of living in Bolivia, one of South America’s economically poorest countries (though spiritually rich).  Fair Trade is a form of social and economic justice supported by Fair Trade instructions which provide the infrastructure for producer members and consumers to engage in a more just and fair trade.  Fair Trade guarantees a fair wage, good working conditions, and environmental and community protection on all levels of production.  It appeals to consumers’ rational need to help others and competes in the same free market as conventional, non-fair trade goods. 

Laime, a Fair Trade producer, cried over the climate change induced drought, a permanent condition caused by the melting of Bolivia’s global glaciers, the struggles for recognition by indigenous women, and the woes of poverty in a country with an infant mortality rate almost seven times higher than that of the US.  And she sold product.  Luscious, hand knit, Fair Trade, alpaca a sweaters that only could be purchased by North Americans and Europeans.  The sweaters were too expensive for the knitters themselves to buy.  The Bolivian women knit in acrylic for their children and export the native raised, high quality, alpaca to the richer markets in the US and Europe.  Bolivians have recently have been doing the same with their quinoa, a hearty, native grain which contains a complete protein.  New Fair Trade quinoa export demands have raised the price of quinoa so high that it can no longer be purchased in the local markets.  This, like the ethanol demand for corn, can lead to food security issues.  Fair Trade does not recognize food security.

Export sales, however, are a lifeline for many impoverished producers, and women who have little opportunity or access to the wage market.  A doctoral research study I conducted in Bolivia in 2010, found that Laime and other women liker her working in Fair Trade reported important earnings for their family, financial stability, skills development, and increased self esteem from their Fair Trade participation.  Fair Trade provided them with a first step into the wage economy and gave women the skills and experience to be successful in other businesses as well.

Since 1996 I have been working in Fair Trade as a business owner (www.kusikuy.com), academic, doctoral researcher, and consultant.  I have helped to found Fair Trade Towns (including Brattleboro, VT) and Universities (Keene State College is well on its way) and educate thousands on the meaning and benefits of Fair Trade.  I advocate for the producers who are often the ones left out of the conversation.  They could be considered "invisible" except they are so easily seen. Their faces are prominently displayed with their goods.  However they are mute.   There is no mechanism for producers to directly participate in US Fair Trade institutions, even though it's their sweat and labor which make the products that are sold to comfortable consumers, under the auspices of these institutions.  Many Fair Trade websites are peppered with images of unwashed farmers in their work clothes who organizations claim to "help" and "support."  Why do the farmers need to be portrayed like this?  Can’t they be given time to wash up and dress nicely for a photo that gives them the dignity and respect they deserve?   Would anyone want to be photographed in their dirty work clothes and then have that image used to represent them and their company?

FairTradeUSA (FTUSA) is the largest Fair Trade certifier in the US and dominates the US’s $2.3 billion Fair Trade market.  They are all about making Fair Trade accessible and have recently unveiled plans to launch an aggressive FT4U campaign, which includes the scaling down of their certification standards to accommodate producers whom did not meet the previously established standards; mainly large coffee plantation owners.  This has caused an uproar in the Fair Trade industry, and resulted in FTUSA severing ties from the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO)  and the Fair Labeling Organization (FLO) which they were formally an umbrella organization of.  FTUSA even had the audacity to recently send out a fund raising request to help these farmers.  Perhaps it is in anticipation of all of the FT farmers they will be putting out of business. 

There is currently a glut of Fair trade coffee on the market and has been for years.  Every single Fair Trade coffee farmer I have personally spoken with in the past two years, from Nicaragua, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Ecuador, and the Dominica Republic, reported the same thing.  They cannot sell all of their Fair Trade coffee.  There is not enough market for it. Anywhere from 20-40% of their Fair Trade coffee harvests are being dumped on the conventional market as conventional coffee, because there is not enough market for their Fair Trade production.  Yet FTUSA says they must expand their certification to include plantations in order to grow the FT market.  Grow it where?  It is already oversaturated.   Adding plantation coffee will just knock out the already struggling cooperatives who need more market access not more competition.

Each of the coffee farmers I spoke with felt disempowered and mistrustful of the Fair Trade system.  Even the women producers I have been working with for 15 years questioned the fairness of Fair Trade.  This is because the Fair Trade industry demands transparency and obedience from Fair Trade producers but provides none back.  There is no transparency provided to the producers about product mark ups, sales, the treatment of retail store staff, the roles and salaries of intermediaries and wholesalers, yet Fair Trade producers need to make all of that and more visible to buyers and consumers.  They need to post earnings to community funds, keep elaborate records, and are forced to work together cooperatively, wither they want to or not. 

Imagine this from a US perspective.  The US depends heavily on export sales.  But now there is a new export standard for US products.  To participate in this lucrative market, each US company would need to be certified by having a foreign buyer or assessor arrive and demand that all sales, price setting, salaries, earnings and investments, be made transparent.  They would dictate how earnings are spent and what prices should be. To work like this would be demoralizing, demeaning, and would cause tremendous strife amongst employees too. 

Now FTUSA has further insulted farmers by proposing to give work to the same competition, the haciendas and large coffee plantations, that Fair Trade was set up to protect farmers from in the first place.  Frankly, we in the industry are shocked. appalled and horrified at what FTUSA is proposing to do.  The “we” includes the United Students for Fair Trade, Equal Exchange – the largest and one of the first Fair Trade coffee cooperatives and importers in the US, the Fair Trade Federation, the World Fair Trade Organization, and FairTradeUK.  I personally do not know anyone in the Fair Trade industry who is in support of what FTUSA is doing.  Even their own farmers and cooperatives  are speaking out against them. 

It is also unfair for the consumer.  Already bombarded by greenwashing, the false association of a company with positive social and environmental causes, the last thing a consumer needs is to doubt the fairness of Fair Trade itself.   What Fair Trade needs is right now is more fairness, not less.

Fair Trade needs to be exactly that, fair trade.  If anything it needs to be fairer that it already is, with equal representation of producers in Fair Trade institutions and more room for producer input and power.  The World Fair Trade Organization is already doing this and has recently changed their board to be made up of equal numbers of members and producers. 

FTUSA has done a tremendous job developing and promoting Fair Trade in the US. They have helped to build an interesting idea into a multi-billion dollar industry.  They have helped to support schools, communities and citizen groups in understanding and accessing Fair Trade.  They have brought in producers, created contests, provided resources, and hosted conferences and speaker series.  Fair Trade would not be the commonly known term it is in the US today if it were not for the unrelenting and forward thinking of work of FTUSA.  The idea of further expanding Fair Trade needs to be a decision made together.  Though FTUSA has provided mechanisms for participation on their web site through the development of a tri-lingual forum.  I encourage all to visit and participate in these tools: http://fairtradeusa.org/certification/standards . 

These tools, however, do not seem to go far enough in ensuring that all voices are heard, given power and deemed important in this critical time of change.  The difficult part is the feeling of urgency.  It is believed that once Fair Trade standards are lowered to accept plantation production, it will be very hard to reverse the damage.  FTUSA has given people until December 30th to provide feedback on their proposed opening of Fair trade. There is also an electronic forum and an e-mail address (standards@fairtradeusa.org) to respond to.  All can be found towards the bottom of their web page.  How Fair do you think Fair Trade should be?  Lets occupy Fair Trade and let our voices be heard.  After all, it is only fair that all should know what is really happening and what we are all thinking.  And we only have a short time to do so.