FairTrade Fortnight hopes
to kick-start a new era

Fair Trade Fortnight: March 6-19

It is not just the actions of supermarket chains which we need to concern ourselves with when we consider why the fair trade movement is gathering in strength. The plights of the banana producers, the coffee and the cocoa bean growers which have been drawn into prominence are merely a blip in a commercial landscape that enables those with means to thrive at the expense of those with nothing. By nothing I do not allude to those in this and other European countries who are supported by benefits and can still expect to have all the modern day trappings like TV sets and mobile phones and branded trainers and cigarettes and money to spend in the supermarket and access to all the medical care they demand. I allude instead to those who have quite literally nothing to fall back on at all other than their willingness to work. Even so, with scant earned income or no income at all if work is unavailable, many of these people have no access to medical care, clean water, have little if any food, no shelter, no education. Many would have no way out but for the opportunities extended by the FairTrade Movement and the various charitable initiatives that provide practical aid to help families to become self-sufficient.

Understandably, to these people the west is a paradise which flows with untold riches and where all people have access to education, sanitation, healthcare and more. It is a pity then that we people who are blessed with such riches fail to appreciate just how fortunate we are. That we should need to be urged to buy responsibly and with regard for the welfare of others does us little justice as a nation, yet evidently many people do need to be reminded that to act with selflessness as opposed to the more customary selfishness is not a nicety but a necessity.

We in the west – and I include the United States here – are able to exert phenomenal power over overseas food growers, commodity suppliers and manufacturers to drive their prices down to meet our insatiable demand for cheaper food and goods. We bemoan the loss of much of our own agricultural diversity and manufacturing heritage, weep tears of nostalgia for the story book images of farming that we were brought up with, yet we are unwilling to pay a realistic price for anything. Our farmers are subsidised and yet still cannot, in many cases, work their land profitably or produce what is required at a price the supermarket giants will pay. Even if they can, many are forced to rely on itinerant and often illegal workers as we in the west are far too grand to take these jobs and work for less than we can cream from the benefit system. It seems that self respect and pride went out of the window as the era of buy one get one free and multi-packs of this, that and the other arrived. Why buy one bag of crisps when you can buy the mega pack of 24 ? Why just the one chicken when you can two for the same price ? So we western nations turn time and time again to imports and allow our supermarkets and chain stores to source the goods wherever they can strike the best deal. Inevitably this means turning to a country which is better at playing the subsidy game than ours (those aren’t French apples in your supermarket trolley are they ?) or a country where rates of pay are absolutely minimal.

It is a global issue, a moral issue and an issue of such importance that we should all take it fully to heart and start to appreciate the impact we are each having. In today’s world the reality is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer (or simply die if they happen to have drawn the short straw and been born in the third world). And even in those third world countries there are deep layers of corruption. Those who bleed their countrymen dry as they make their fortunes stealing food and medical supplies donated by charities for the poor and selling them on to those who have the money to pay for them. Such is the world we now inhabit. Morals, ethics, scruples ….in 2006, you must be joking !

So what has this to do with Fair Trade ? The reality is that we must now accept that there is no such thing as cheap food, cheap clothing, cheap kitchenware, cheap anything. In fact, we should also be asking ourselves whether we actually need even half of the food and the goods we buy. If we spent the same money to buy half of the goods we do currently we’d be getting far closer to the ideal, which is to pay a fair price that can sustain payment of fair wages. A price that could also see the production of goods taking place closer to the point of consumption to reduce food miles and environmental pollution.

These days though, I fear, we are motivated more by greed than by need. I’m alright Jack never mind you. I’ll have that t-shirt in white, pink and blue because it is so cheap. I’ll probably never wear the pink one but never mind. Look 16 packets for the price of ten, that’s good. Will we eat 16 ? It doesn’t matter let’s get them anyway. Look at the embroidery on that top. Bet it took ages to do, really fiddly with all those beads as well. Only £8. I’ll have one of those.

Perhaps we will change our ways when we recognise the obvious – which is that the low prices we are asked to pay would have been more than matched in suffering and deprivation by its third world slave-producer. Not forgetting, of course, that the retail price we pay includes not only the cost of the goods but the cost of their transportation half way around the world to the point of sale. Then deduct any applicable import duties, VAT or sales taxes, as well as a workable margin for the retailer. The producer gets a mere fraction, as for his workers they can’t earn more in day than the cost of one takeaway coffee. You do well to gulp.

So how can goods be sold at today’s extraordinary low retail prices ? In most cases it is due to the exploitation of workers in the third world where adults work for seventy hours a week or more for less than the pocket money received by a British five year old for doing nothing at all. Remember too that working conditions will be on a par with those our forebears fought tooth and nail to improve in Victorian times. No safety guards on the machines, no protection against those chemicals, no ventilation. Some know it alls will, of course, defensively argue that earning any money at all in the third world is better than nothing and yes, it probably is. But many of these workers can barely afford to buy the most basic of food let alone support their families. Children are put to work instead of having the chance to go to school. Living conditions are squalid. Disease is rife. Medical care is non-existent. How can we justify accepting this subsidy which has cost so much in blood, sweat, tears and despair ? With a heavy heart. With a reluctant heart, or better still not at all because we have the freedom to choose to buy many goods from a bona fide Fair Trade source. And we, of course, are alright Jack with our subsidised, centrally heated housing association house, the car, the family income supplement, the free education, free health care, and those bargain buys in the supermarket …..Frankly an awful lot of people in this country don’t know they are born !

As consumers in the west, the lure to grab a bargain is frighteningly strong and it won’t be easy to change that. Judging by the crowds squabbling over this week’s bargain buy in the discount stores many consumers are either ignorant of the source of their bargains or choose not to dwell on the real human cost. Perhaps if they were set to work for a day in one of those sweatshops or out in the fields along with little Johnny and Tyrone they might wake up. But that isn’t going to happen so in a typical scenario our family out shopping for clothing for the kids will seek the best value they can find for their money. As they are choosing those cheap t-shirts for their sons they rarely consider that the real price of those t-shirts can be measured in a different currency altogether. The cost is the back breaking work for the worker out in the cotton fields and the lost childhood of the brother and sister who live an altogether different life working long shifts sewing those t-shirts simply to earn enough to eat. There but for the grace of God …. need I say more ? Here have another coke Tyrone – it took a week to earn that.

It is little different for the children of impoverished workers throughout the third world. The agricultural workers who will never have an opportunity to send their children to school or be able to pay for medical treatment for them if they become ill. And perhaps worse than that, knowing that their children are going to be stuck in the vicious cycle of poverty that these days, as the western influence reaches the remotest parts of the world, takes on new significance and breeds deepening discontent.

Yes there are some charities scratching at the surface in many third world countries and making a very small difference but these nations need our trade, our fair trade, not here one day gone tomorrow hand-outs.

Think cheap t-shirt – hesitate - think lost childhood. And it isn’t just the pile it high sell it cheap end of the market that exploits low cost labour. Coveted branded goods that have a manufactured cost that can be measured in pennies are selling for tens or even hundreds of pounds. What excuse is there for that ? Sheer unadulterated greed ….

Businesses told: Now’s the time to get involved
Many of the UK’s biggest retailers and catering outlets have already put their weight behind Fairtrade Fortnight and this year the Fairtrade Foundation is encouraging them to increase their involvement. Under the banner “Make Fair-Trade Your Habit” retailers will be promoting goods including coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, bananas, oranges, fruit juices, cakes, honey, spices, nuts and oils as well as cotton products, sports balls and wines. UK sales of goods bearing the Fairtrade Mark reached £140 million in 2004 and have been growing by 40 per cent year on year with global sales having reached an estimated US $1 billion. This in turn is benefiting some 5 million people in 58 developing countries. Further info: www.fairtrade.org.uk


Cotton on to Fairtrade
More than 100 million rural households around the world are involved in cotton production with millions of small scale cotton farmers at the mercy of volatile world market prices. The first ever cotton certified by the Fairtrade Foundation was launched in November and aims to improve the lives of cotton farmers in India, Peru, Mali and Senegal. The farmers will receive the guaranteed Fairtrade minimum price plus a premium for use in social or business development projects. In India villagers have decided the additional money from the premium will be spent on providing clean drinking water. Ten companies ranging from independent shops, e-commerce and mail order businesses are involved in the initial launch to UK consumers.