To view the photo-rich magazine version, click here.
Originally appears in the Winter 2018 issue.
It seems counter-intuitive that the people who produce many commodities that we highly value are also some of the poorest people in our world who live in the countries that find themselves towards the bottom of the United Nations’ Human Development Index. This is the case with farmers and workers who produce much of our clothing, as well as our coffee, tea, chocolate, sugar, fruit, and other tropical crops.
Fair trade is the system that combats this inequity by offering producers an opportunity for better pay and working conditions, greener environmental practices, more clout in the global marketplace, and a price premium that allows for community development where they live.
In my travels over a long career, I’ve seen evidence that when given the opportunity and treated fairly, people in communities in the poorest countries — specifically, many tropical nations in the so-called Global South — can increase their quality of life. Fairer trade can benefit the poor producer more than conventional charitable aid donations currently do. While your generosity toward a charity is much appreciated and does some good, more at the policy level needs to be done to ensure that we will have better quality products and that others will have better lives. As an example, in Tanzania, East Africa I’ve seen people “graduate” from walking to bicycling to driving, and from no communication technology to 24-7 internet and phone access, thanks in part to the benefits of fair trade in the handicraft market. In Central and South America, I’ve seen the same in the coffee, cocoa, and sugar markets.
Individuals can support the global movement towards fair trade by “voting with our dollars” for ethical products every time we shop. We can also take a hard look at, and take action on, the trade regulations that wealthier governments and corporations promote and support, and that hurt the economies and families of poorer countries. Educators can offer their already socially passionate students the information and structure they need to make a measurable difference to poor producers via fair trade. It might be through starting a club, putting on an event, or weaving fair trade into school policies.
For some teachers, fair trade is just one of many global issues they want to expose students to, while for others, it becomes their school’s defining issue and practice — the way their institution chooses to contribute to global poverty alleviation.
I began introducing students to fair trade forty-five years ago as a university-aged activist speaking to classes about global poverty, playing simulation games with them, and showing old-technology slide shows. Today, I receive invitations daily from schools to deliver presentations on fair trade and to strategize with them on attaining Fair Trade School status, planning fair trade assemblies and graduations, and pushing school divisions to adopt fair trade as part of their sustainability policies. With this article, I unpack the essentials of fair trade and offer a small number of classroom activities that educators can use.
What is Fair Trade?
The two questions we are most often asked are: What is fair trade? and How do we become a Fair Trade School? Typical follow-ups are Where can we purchase fair trade products? and questions around reliable availability and reasonable pricing. Ultimately, we are asked Does fair trade really make a difference to global Southern communities? Let’s examine these questions further.
In a nutshell, fair trade encompasses a few basic principles. First of all, the fair trade system ensures that agricultural and manufacturing producers receive a better return on their work and their products than the current global marketplace would offer them. Only a few cents from your cup of coffee or your banana actually goes to the person who grew the coffee or banana plants. The fair trade system can multiply that amount by six to ten times.
Secondly, fair trade and organic producers receive a premium added to their payment, amounting to about ten percent, that goes toward community projects, such as schools, clinics, new equipment, and training. The premium has also been used to do agricultural research to combat the effects of global warming. The fair trade system, through Fairtrade International based in Bonn, Germany and its national partners, has also supported farmers financially amid weather events and the onset of new diseases caused by climate change.
As fair trade products are most often produced in rural cooperatives, the process also fosters leadership, transparency, and democracy. An extra effort is made to ensure the strong role of women in the cooperative to combat traditional male dominance in society. Of course, fair trade doesn’t allow for child labor and it makes provisions for improved worker safety.
As fair trade products have become more mainstream over the past decade, it is now easy to find typical food items like tea and coffee available in chain grocery and big box stores. Of course, your local health food or “green” stores will carry them too, as will Ten Thousand Villages shops located right across Canada and some parts of the US. Going beyond these everyday products, it takes a bit more searching or arranging, but you can also find fair trade fruits and vegetables, clothing, sports balls, wine and other liquor products, flowers, spices, dried fruits, and more.
Increased sales has also meant that fair trade product prices have come down. As a former fair trade store manager, I know that the once-$18 bag of coffee beans now can be found for at least $5 less! Availability definitely increases for those living in larger cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, but if you want a product in your community, you can usually find a way to get it — perhaps through occasional special events featuring fair trade bananas or flowers, or by just getting out there and talking to local merchants who might join forces to bring in products more regularly.
The challenge is that there are more fair trade products being produced in the fair trade system than are actually being sold as fair trade. We need to step up our efforts to market our Southern partners’ products!
Fair Trade Schools
With support from Fairtrade America or Fairtrade Canada, this is not hard to do. Form a small committee in your school that includes a few students, at least one teacher, and an administrator. Get your staff room and cafeteria to offer three fair trade options (e.g., coffee, tea, sugar). Put up informative signage and hold at least one annual fair trade-related event. Engage with your neighbourhood or community on the steps you have taken. There is an online application available from the above organizations to make it all official.
Does it Make a Difference?
Ultimately, does the fair trade system actually work to make producers’ lives better in the Global South? When a teacher or principal asks that question, they really don’t want a quotation from a textbook; ideally, they would see the benefits of fair trade with their own eyes. Thus, Canadian fair trade organizations have set out to promote and lead “origin tours” to visit coffee, cocoa, banana, mango, sugar, and other co-operatives in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
My own experience on an origin tour was to Péru in 2016 with a dozen other activists, business people, and institutional leaders from across Canada. We saw firsthand many of the factors that have been mentioned in this article. Some that I use in my presentations focus on our visit to a banana co-op where we were told that before the local people got involved in fair trade they actually lost money on every banana produced since market prices were lower than the cost of production.
As well, we saw the safety features that locals had installed in the production system, including equipment to cushion their shoulders when they cut down and caught the banana bunches and pulleys to move the bunches to the washing and sorting area so that workers didn’t have to carry very heavy loads in stifling heat and humidity. We also saw increased leadership by women who led our tours and showcased their co-operatives.
Without a fairer deal, there is little to keep producers on the land in the Global South, and their future prospects are of continued poverty, decreasing yields, and greater isolation as the world urbanizes at a remarkable rate.
Spreading the Word
Fair trade can spark momentum and bring about real change, but it requires our commitment. Schools bring passion, enthusiasm, and fun to the equation, so they are great places to focus outreach.
As I’ve learned through my many classroom visits, having someone visit a classroom to engage students and teachers on a global issue can make a lasting impact by offering an experiential resource: a game, a compelling set of photos from a Global Southern expedition, or even a real live speaker from far away. Speaking in a university class recently, several of the students recognized me as the “Fair Trade Guy” who had come to their high school in past years. They remembered the fair trade t-shirts they’d silk-screened, the fair trade sports balls they’d tried out in gym, and the fair trade banana-chocolate chip muffins we’d catered to a school assembly.
An added local bonus to fair trade activism in schools is the youth citizenship factor. We ask our students to be good stewards of the land/air/water, good citizens in their communities, and good friends to the young people around them. Many schools are concerned about their local physical, economic, and social environments. Discussion and action around fair trade helps build youth concern about local issues as well as ones that seem far away.
Exploring fair trade can be great fun — and so can changing the world; talk to your school about it!
Zack Gross is the Outreach Coordinator for Fair Trade Manitoba, a program of the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation (www.mcic.a). He is past President of the Canadian Fair Trade Network and a member of the Board of Directors of Fairtrade Canada. Yes, that is Zack wearing the banana hat at a presentation.