Fairtrade: can it really make a difference?
Nobody can deny the astonishing success of Fairtrade. And yet the majority of producers in developing nations remain disempowered, battered by market trends and biased trade rules, while the powerful countries and companies just get richer and richer. Kate Evans, York Uni P&P, writes.
FAIRTRADE Mark
Kate Evans is one of P&P’s Media and Communications volunteers. If you want to become a Media and Communications volunteer, visit our volunteering pages.
The fight is to show that we can organise ourselves as well as the big companies can.
Angel Regalado, Fairtrade farmer
Nobody can deny the astonishing success of Fairtrade. In 2006 consumers worldwide spent £1.1bn on Fairtrade Certified Products, a 42% increase on the previous year. Marks & Spencer’s entire tea and coffee range is Fairtrade, and in 2007 Sainsbury’s converted its entire banana range to Fairtrade.
And yet the majority of producers in developing nations remain disempowered, battered by market trends and biased trade rules, while the powerful countries and companies just get richer and richer. As it stands, the world’s trading system, instead of helping to alleviate poverty, is robbing millions of people the ability to make a proper living. Developed nations spend $1 billion a day subsidising their farmers. Consequently they produce too much and dump the extra produce on developing countries at vastly reduced prices, denying poor farmers the chance to compete and to make a living. If Africa, Asia and Latin America increased their share of world exports by just one per cent, they would earn enough money to lift 128 million people out of poverty. Yet this will never happen while rich countries use their power at the World Trade Organisation to push through their own agendas.
Against so much injustice, can buying Fairtrade products really make any difference?
The answer is of course yes. While Fairtrade obviously cannot solve the root causes of trade injustice, it remains an integral part of the fight against world poverty by giving producers the finance, support systems and confidence to help themselves and their communities.
Most of us know the logic behind the system - Fairtrade organisations do business directly with producers in the developing world, cutting out the middlemen and thus ensuring that the maximum profit is returned to source. Fairtrade also guarantees stability for producers, protecting them against flux in the market through secure, long-term prices over and above the market rate. On top of this farmers are given an additional Fairtrade premium for community investment.
The impact of this investment on communities makes a huge difference to the lives of its inhabitants. In St Lucia in the Caribbean, the existence of community centres, medical facilities, computers in schools and nursing homes across the island are examples of the premium being put to good use. In the Dominican Republic farmers have used their premium to improve local roads, drains and irrigation systems. In the village of Juliano, Fairtrade farmers are setting up a community canteen, where local people can get a decent midday meal at a reduced price. The building will also be used for other community activities and religious events, as local people wish. “Things have never been so good in this neighbourhood,” says farmer and villager Concepción Nuñez. “Incomes are coming in from Fairtrade — there’s a baseball pitch — a community canteen. Things are moving.”
Gradually the Fairtrade group of Juliana-Jaramillo, set up in February 2000, are becoming more independent by taking more of the management of the dispatch and sale of their crops into their own hands. “The fight is to show that we can organise ourselves as well as the big companies can,” says Angel Regalado, a Fairtrade farmer. It’s this added power that fair trade brings to producers, beyond just getting a better price, that is so important. Fairtrade challenges the monopoly of the big companies Regalado speaks of, and shows us that there is an alternative to their exploitative practices. It may only be a first step to achieving a better deal for all, but it is a first step that is definitely worth encouraging.
Agree? Disagree? Take part in the Fairtrade debate on our web forum.