Fair Trade Friday

Last Friday our lecture was about fair trade. For those of you who haven’t heard of fair trade, it is loosely defined as a financial relationship between producers/seller/consumers based on what goods are actually worth. The issue was brought up by the movie that we watched Thursday afternoon, Black Gold. Black Gold is a documentary about the coffee industry and how corrupt it has become. Essentially, what’s happening is that coffee prices are being set in a board room in New York City, based on these things called “futures” which are the result of people looking at the going rate of coffee and making a guess as to what it will be worth tomorrow. And people are paid tons of money to do this!

Anyway, the end result is that coffee farmers are forced to sell their coffee according to these “futures” and not at all based on what the coffee is worth. They are often forced into this because of the “free trade” agreements that the US and other developed nations have coaxed them into by the promise of international aid. What “free trade” effectively does is open up the borders of developing nations (eliminating tariffs, etc). The irony is that the countries end up losing out more by signing these agreements than if they had never had the aid to begin with. The statistic stands that if developing nations in Africa could increase their exports by 1%, they would make 5 times the amount they are currently receiving in aid.

So, fair trade has been developed to combat this issue of economic exploitation. And there are all kinds of fair trade items – coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, clothing, the list goes on. To be clear, “Fair Trade” is a brand – it is a seal that is put onto items that have been Fair Trade Certified, and that is a guarantee that whatever item you are buying was in no way involved in unfair or unethical business practices. So while “Fair Trade” is a brand, it has been formed out of the idea of trading fairly. You will see/hear people talk about items that have been fairly traded, but unless there is a Fair Trade seal, there is no guarantee that the item was traded completely fairly. Some people complain because it costs money to have your items Fair Trade certified, but the cost is little compared to the impact it can have in profitability and a real chance at economic improvement for farmers all over the world.

And it’s not just that the farmers need greater profits, but rather that they need to break even - to survive. So many farmers are forced to sell their crops for half of what they’re worth – losing out each time they sell their products. Another important thing to remember is that in the US and many other developed nations, farmers are subsidized by the government, but in the poorest countries around the world, governments cannot afford to subsidize farmers, yet another compounding factor in the cycle of poverty.

So, I know that's a ton of information but this is something real that we can do to make a change. So look for Fair Trade certifications on the goods that are most often linked with economic exploitation & slave labor: coffee, tea, chocolate... and take a look at this link which is a really cool program to show you where your money goes when you pay for a cup of coffee. You can also check this out, which is a website dedicated to rating companies' ethical standards, mostly based upon labor practices.

Lots of information, I know, but thank you for reading it all! I think this is an issue that's so important because our choices do make a difference!