Kids Need Fair Trade
Editor's note: We're also pleased to welcome Alicia Erickson to the writing team. Alicia, along with her husband Brady Swenson, will be covering Fair Trade issues for us. Alicia and Brady live in Lawrence, Kansas, where they own and operate Two Hands Worldshop.
Saturday May 12th is the third global World Fair Trade Day. This day of celebration is an opportunity to increase Fair Trade awareness and expand understanding of the benefits it provides to poor families, deteriorating cultures and the environment. It also happens to be just before Mother’s Day, which offers a great chance to give your mom a gift that is also a gift to mothers across the world.
This year World Fair Trade Day will focus on children, with the motto “Kids Need Fair Trade.” Children are deeply affected by unfair trade policies. They become trapped in the cycle of poverty with little to no access to healthcare or education. Children in poor households are forced to work simply to eat. The World Fair Trade Day website claims “Coffee, cocoa (chocolate), bananas, oranges and sugar are among the food sectors that most exploit child labour.” Most of these products have a Fair Trade alternative.
Fair Trade requires, among other stipulations, that workers are paid a fair wage in the local context making parents more able to support families. Fair Trade also provides a social premium, such as ten cents per pound of coffee sold that is then used by producer cooperatives to build schools and health centers, and pay teachers and clinicians.
Fair Trade is also committed to gender equality, an idea that is being passed down to young girls and cultivated in these strongly patriarchal societies. The opportunity for women to provide for their families not only allows their daughters to attend school, but also instills in them a sense of empowerment and independence. This increased self worth is helping to create a generation of women who will question and change their oppression in these cultures.
There are many ways to raise awareness for this celebration:
- Transfair is sponsoring an art contest about Fair Trade for children 3rd – 12th grade, entries due May 15th
- Purchase Fair Trade gifts this mother’s day and start the conversation. I encourage you to support your local fair trade establishment or you can peruse my fair trade shop, Two Hands Worldshop.
- Host a Global Trade Soccer Game and get a Fair Trade Soccer ball with donations.
- Bake Mom a delicious dessert with Fair Trade chocolate. You can find tasty recipes at Divine & Equal Exchange. Enjoy it with some delicious Fair Trade coffee or tea.
- Support Fair Trade, check out the Fair Trade Federation to find a business which carries Fair Trade near you or look for World Fair Trade Day events close by at the World Fair Trade Day site or the Fair Trade Resource Network.
Tags: Fair Trade, fair+trade, mothers+day, world+fair+trade+day
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May 7th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I, for one, am skeptical of Fair Trade. I believe Fair Trade acts as a subsidy to farmers and governments, thereby taking away incentives to move away from an agrarian economy. Third World countries are poor for the very reason that their economies are too dependent on agriculture. The only way Third World countries are ever going to achieve higher levels of economic growth and thereby eliminate poverty on the large scale is by becoming industrialized. If you keep subsidizing farmers and holding their hands, surely it will take away incentives from their governments to transition from an agrarian economy to one that’s based on manufacturing.
I understand that the families and children need support and access to healthcare and education, and I absolutley, with all my heart, think fundraising events such as these are needed to support and help to bring attention to these world issues.
We need to additionally support these governments to ensure that our Fair Trade efforts are not a crutch preventing these nations from making moves tword self-sufficence.
May 7th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
I appreciate your concerns, Andyfts, but disagree that they are the problem. Fair Trade price floors do act like a small subsidy in that they provide income for the farmers above the market price. However these effectual subsidies pale in comparison to the massive subsidies the US and other industrialized nations provide to their farmers. The US alone gives almost $600 billion in subsidies to US farmers. Global fair trade sales of produce and other farm products approached $1 billion last year. These massive subsidies in industrialized nations help contribute to an unfair marketplace for farmers in poor nations especially when they result in overproduction and dumping, i.e. exporting subsidized wheat overproduction to Africa for half the market price resulting in the absolute inability for African farmers to compete in their own markets.
Additionally I disagree with your notion that fundraising, charity and debt relief can produce meaningful development in poor nations. The world has donated trillions of dollars to Africa during the past three decades and yet the continent is less productive and more poor than it was in 1977. Think: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
Fair Trade attempts to provide a way for farmers and artisans to empower themselves with their own market-based business. Fair Trade is much more than a price floor. Fair Trade companies provide training and education, access to basic banking and credit services that we Westerners take for granted when starting a business and provide long-term trade contracts that, instead of large corporations shopping the world market for the lowest prices and never dealing with a farming cooperative again, create a consistent and reliable income.
In my mind Fair Trade gives farmers and artisans access to the tools necessary to compete in the industrial global market place and they are all tools their Western counterparts have access to already, subsidies included. Add in business education and training and Fair Trade is teaching farmers and artisans how to eat for a lifetime.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Thank you, Andyfts, for bringing up concerns expressed by many people. I believe Brady addressed the pricing and subsidy issue quite well. Here’s my two cents.
Fair Trade is not just about setting a price floor. Fair Trade is about the human aspect in trade, and pricing is one aspect of a respectful wage for labor. There are many others, such as the education and health services mentioned. Fair Trade also requires safe working conditions and forbids child or exploitive labor. These are certainly not new or radical ideas, as we already have such requirements for US citizens through minimum wage, work safety requirements and child labor laws. The problem Fair Trade addresses is why these requirements for basic human rights do not apply to people beyond our borders.
Ideally we will reach a point where the human aspect is always a consideration in trade, where profit margins are not gained at the expense of people. A point when unfair tariffs and subsidies are eliminated and there is an equal playing field for all participants. When we reach that end, Fair Trade will no longer be necessary, as all trade will be fair. Until we get there, Fair Trade offers us a chance to make steps towards granting basic human rights and respect to all people.
Please feel free to bring up other concerns, I'm happy to discuss!
May 7th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Thanks for the great replies, Alicia and Brady. I wanted to, but couldn’t gather my thoughts well enough during the school day.
Any chance your physical store will be opened in June? I’m going to Wakarusa, so I’ll be in your neck of the woods.
May 8th, 2007 at 1:34 am
Hi Brady & Alicia,
Those were fantastic articles and while I may not get in every time, I have put the Green Options on my Favorites. Love you Grandpa
May 8th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I have not discounted the human element here, please be clear about that…I believe that no one should have to suffer.
Brandy, where did your facts come from? I have been unable to verify the 600 billion in subsidies to US farmers. Andrew Cassel (Philadelphia Inquirer)did heavy research on this in 2002 and could only establish that when it came to farm subsidies the US government (at that time) was calling for taxpayers to fork over some $180 billion to farmers during the next decade. That was a 70 percent hike above the cost of current farm-subsidy programs at that time. When was there such a massive hike? Is this an annual number or an aggregate total of a long term plan?
“Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” is a very noble way of looking at this - but what if there is no where to fish? What I mean is, what if the opportunity is not the best for learning to fish or fishing? Perhaps weaving a basket is better suited to the man’s environment. Would it not be fair to give the man a fish if he was giving a basket in trade? Would it not be just as noble to feed and clothe this man while he gets his basket weaving economy up and running? — you see?
I understand that “dumping” our wheat on the African market is killing their business, but why the need to compete in the wheat industry? Let us provide the wheat, you make a serious effort to get an economy going with something more tword the industrial side. Farming is not the only option here.
May 8th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Hey again Andy, I certainly sense your concern for human suffering and am not questioning that. The $600 billion was way off, your're right, that was my mistake made from too quick research. The US paid $164 billion in farm subsidies between 1995-2005 and paid over $21 billion in 2005 (http://www.ewg.org/farm/regionsummary.php?fips=00000). I think those figures are still sufficient to support my point that African farmers, for instance, are competing against highly subsidized farmers who already have many other advantages.
Sure, I understand your take on the metaphor. I think feeding and clothing the man while he starts up his basket trade is also noble in spirit but has been proven not to work well simply because the man has too hard a time competing against industrialized, perhaps even subsidized, basket weaving operations. Fair Trade attempts to provide the man with the means to compete and, while growing his business, the means to educate his children, clothe and feed his family, etc via the living wage.
The issue with your last point is that many of these workers don't know anything but farming and the crafting techniques passed down to them. The cycle of poverty cannot break without a decent education system so new generations can learn new, more marketable, skills. You've got to start somewhere and Fair Trade is trying to help provide the means for families to break this cycle so their economies can, in the long run, begin to compete in other areas aside from agriculture, handcrafts and textiles.
Thanks for this great discussion, Andy.
Brady
May 8th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Andy, first to clarify that I do not believe you discount the human element. I believe our discussion is proof to that. I would like to I would like to expand on your example. Your statement, to give a man a fish in exchange for his basket is wonderful! It is a fair trade. However, would it be fair to give him charity (such as fish and clothing) while he establishes his business, only to open a large basket selling store next door, undercutting his prices and selling items made through slavery conditions? The charity given then becomes only a way to ensure the powerful maintains wealth while continuing his poverty and dependence upon you.
I also believe your point of moving towards manufacturing rather than farming will not solve the problem. Problems of little to no pay, dangerous working conditions, environmentally unfriendly practices and child labor, etc. are just as prevalent in the manufacturing industry. For example is a refrigerator maker in the US was earning $11.95 per hour and moved with his job when it was out-sourced to India for $0.35 per hour, 1/3 of the estimated living wage (http://freepressed.com/manufacturing.htm). Unfortunately as long as greed is the driving force in trade, it will be at the expense of people.
I believe the only way to truly change trade is to connect the consumer with the producer, to create the understanding that products come either at the expense or benefit of another human life. Fair Trade is not only for farmers, although that is certainly the most well known, it is for people with all skills. Fair Trade is the way to trade a fish with the gentleman weaving the basket, while ensuring he has the opportunity to trade his basket with others.
May 9th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Brady and Alicia…
Thank you for this discussion. Believe it or not this has, at least partially, changed the way I look at this issue. While I still don’t completely agree with the Fair Trade and subsidy process - you have changed the way I think about it. I always try to keep an open mind and keep the discussion going and learn something new!
Also, I hope I did not come off as a jerk when I asked you about your facts, Brady. I just think that everyone needs to be very aware of the accuracy of the information we put out there. I appreciate your additional information and I do agree that the amount, whether it’s 100 billion or 600 billion, is a tremendous subsidy!
Thanks again you guys!
May 9th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Thank you Andy! Your concerns are prevalent with the Fair Trade movement, and very important. Only with skepticism and constant vigilance can we as consumers ensure the Fair Trade movement remains honest to its goals and criteria. Fair Trade is not the final destination, but rather an effort of progression towards betterment of the trade system.
Thank you for the great discussion!