http://www.care2.com/greenliving/fair-trade-a-little-effort.html
Fair Trade: A Little Effort Goes a Long Way
By Heather L. Jones, Care2 Green Living contributing writer
Buying Fair Trade is a laudable goal for the socially conscious: It’s a practice that ensures safe working conditions and equitable wages for people in developing countries who, in the capitalist free market system, have been easy targets to overwork and underpay in order to beef up someone else’s profits.
If you pay people in a third-world country a fair wage, the kids there are more likely to go to school and get educated because they don’t have to work to help the family get enough to eat. If a community organizes into a farm co-op and earns enough to invest in more organic practices, it can develop a healthier and more sustainable approach for future years—and future generations.
Unfortunately Fair Trade is still fairly new, so a consumer won’t be able to just walk into the closest supermarket and swap out all their old staples for Fair Trade-certified alternatives. It takes more effort—and more money.
How much more? Well, for some items, such as coffee, you won’t notice a difference if you’re already drinking something better than Folgers out of a can. (Some critics say that’s because now that so many people can make a living wage by producing coffee, there’s more on the market and the prices are being driven down. Bummer!)
For other things, you’ll have to really feel like helping others to pay Fair Trade prices. For example, in a higher-end supermarket where a 3-oz. Ghirardelli bar was priced at $2.49, a 3.5-oz. Fair Trade-certified “Alter Eco” was $3.99. At a food co-op, “conventional” bananas were 59 cents per pound, while Fair Trade bananas were $1.49 per pound. Prices will vary, but these numbers give you an idea of how much more you can expect to pay.
Sorry, but it’s going to cost you more if the people harvesting your bananas or the cocoa for your chocolate bars aren’t getting a raw deal.
If you’re committed to Fair Trade ideals, you’ll want to join your local food co-op if there’s one in your area. You’ll find a wider selection of certified products, and as a co-owner, if there’s something you’d like to see on the shelves, you can pipe up.
Another option is to urge your local supermarket manager to carry more Fair Trade products.
Co-Op America’s Fair Trade Guide offers tips on mobilizing your community to campaign for such products. It includes a sample letter you can refer to when you write to your store manager, and it lists Fair Trade importers of such produce as coffee, chocolate, sugar, produce and spices.
Funny thing about the free market society here in the United States that can be so crippling to the small farmer in a third-world country: The big corporations want to please us, because they want our business, so we do have a say and we can make a difference.
Heather L. Jones is a freelance writer and editor who lives in Davis, Calif.
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15 comments
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good post
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Well, I generally support the idea but try to buy locally made and grown product more. Fair trade relates to Third-World countries and, however much I would like to support those, I still have my 'local' farmers with low wages and high unemployment rate. When it comes to coffee and chocolate (which do not grow in my country), I am all in. Nevertheless, as someone else mentioned here before, it is worth to consider our real need for good imported from a place half the world away. I enjoy my apples too!
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buy Fair Trade products whenever I can.
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a really good way to help people help themselves and keep there dignity
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WOW! what a strange article. Fair Trade does not always mean high price, just as organic does not always mean going to a health food store or paying more. Fair Trade is getting more common, it is sustainable and directly helps the farmers. It is one of many things we can do to help the environment and to be socially responsible, no matter what you pay in dollars the real price is far less than taking unfair advantage of labor. The other point here is the focus on chocolate and bananas, which as far as I know are not necessary to your diet. The addiction to things like bananas, which are grown thousands of miles away, unless you live in South Florida or the Rio Grande Valley, is part of our addiction to oil, and the idea that food grown in other countries and out of season is somehow OK for us to consume on a regular basis. Orange Juice and Bananas the cornerstone of American breakfast, just try and think of the labor and fossil fuel required to bring perishable goods to your table in winter. I gave up bananas years ago, and am thankful to be where I can get local apple juice year round. Fair or unfair, that does not seem to be much of a question. Support your local farmers and eat local, that is the fairest thing of all.
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very good information, thank you for sharing
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thanks for the article, I love fair trade!
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I buy Fair Trade products whenever I can.
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Thanks
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