A: It didn’t used to but increasing in Australia we are buying into the idea of Fairtrade, as these charts show.
This week Harriet Lamb director of the Fairtrade Foundation in the UK is visiting Australia, a leader in certification of the ethical sourcing of products.
The fact is that Europe has been leading the world in sourcing Fairtrade goods for some 18 years while in Australia in the past five or six years we have only come to buy into the certification scheme.
Basically Fairtrade’s aim is to protect workers in developing countries who are often exploited to produce cheap commodity products from chocolate to coffee, tea, cotton and even sports balls.
The question to ask is whether the chocolate, coffee or tea you buy each day is ethically sourced. That means that a decent price is paid for the commodities, there are decent working conditions and that child labour isn’t used.
You also might be interested to hear that 75 per cent of the world’s sports balls come from Pakistan and that many workers co-opt their children into making them. They often work long hours and are paid PKR20 (about one-third the minimum wage)
To participate all you need to do is change shopping behaviour and as you can see from the charts supplied by the Fairtrade Association of Australia and New Zealand we are starting to do this.
I had the opportunity to ask Lamb a series of questions for a story I was writing for a business magazine and was only able to use a small portion of the answers due to space constraints. Here is the full Q&A.
EC: Why has the UK seen such amazing growth in Fairtrade while the economy has been so poor?
HL: I think that the public are basically very decent – so once they know about Fairtrade, they are very loyal. Indeed, once you know about poverty among farmers, you cannot “unknow” that – in fact, if anything, in tough times maybe you have more empathy with people really struggling to make ends meet. Fairtrade is about going back to your core values – about people – and coming out of a time of abundance, the UK public’s mood may be in tune with those core values. It is indeed significant, that while people have cut back on any items, they have increased their spending on Fairtrade and are looking to adopt an ethical lifestyle. It’s also the case that as Fairtrade has become more widely available, the price differential has come down – so really you don’t have to pay much more, or indeed anything more, for Fairtrade.
So as Joanne Denny Finch, who heads the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) puts:
“With the surge in interest in provenance and ethics of food which has occurred since the last major downturn, it seems that shoppers are scrutinising value, but they are not compromising their own values’. Research released by IGD last October(2010) showed that despite the continued tough economic climate, 31% of British shoppers expect to buy more Fairtrade products in the future, so sales are predicted to continue to grow.
Increasing recognition and need by consumers for third party certification”
EC: In general, are the public caring more about the provenance of food?
HL: Definitely that is on the up – people do increasingly want to know where their food came from, about how it was grown and how the people were treated – which is a very welcome development. So the UK has seen great increases in initiatives like local farmers’ markets. It is a rejection of decades in which food was increasingly made homogenous and anonymous – all the personality was stripped out and food was sold on price – the old ‘pile em high and sell em cheap’ idea. At first people did welcome the idea of bargain food but now they are realising that the price has to be paid in the end – by poor farmers. So they are turning back to putting a real value on provenance and enjoying hearing the stories of the people who grow their food. It’s good news for farmers and workers, good for the public and good news for business because we have to put value back into our food and drink again.
How have you managed to get so many organisations on board in the UK, especially Universities and local government in addition to major retailers.
Fairtrade just has caught the public imagination – because it is a simple, direct action that everyone can take. You don’t have to be a policy wonk or understand global trade negotiations: you just have to buy the coffee. So that’s really empowering. Everyone feels they are playing their part in creating change. So then the ideas started to spread: let’s make our town, our faith group, our university Fairtrade – because then you can persuade others to buy Fairtrade.
This week we have just declared that there are now 1,000 Fairtrade Towns globally with Spanish capital city Madrid joining the roll call. So because Fairtrade is popular with the public, it makes sense for companies and retailers to offer Fairtrade: if the customers is always right, then they must be right on wanting Fairtrade too!
EC: What do you think is the major challenge for Fairtrade in the future globally and specifically in the UK?
HL: Globally we just have to scale up as millions of poor farmers and workers are queueing to sell their goods on Fairtrade terms – but they can only do that, if more people buy Fairtrade. That’s why it is so important that Fairtrade is growing well in Australia and New Zealand. Our vision is – why cannot half of all the bananas we eat in the UK become Fairtrade? Or half the chocolate? Because then we could begin to transform the future for banana or cocoa farmers in developing countries.
That is a challenge – to step up consumer and business interest, and to scale up our work supporting farmers to organise themselves, and to improve quality and productivity. But when Fairtrade started everyone laughed at us and said it would never work and we have shown that it can indeed work to tackle poverty, and to create sustainable businesses – so we are sure that we can rise to the next challenge.
EC: Are there any particular products or parts of the world that will benefit most from Fairtrade?
HL: We want to work in particular with farmers and workers in the least developed countries who depend on exporting their crops and for whom Fairtrade can be a lifeline. For example most of the world’s cocoa is grown in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana so if we can scale up in chocolate, we can have a significant impact in those countries; likewise by working with coffee farmers in Papua New Guinea, or tea growers in Sri Lanka. We are also keen to work more with producers in countries in conflict. So it is especially exciting that now you can buy Fairtrade olive oil from Palestine, or coffee from Congo – giving people hope and helping to build the economic underpinning of peace. There are many countries and many producers keen to take Fairtrade forward – for example we just launched Fairtrade and Fairmined gold from Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, and we are working on Fairtrade seafood.
EC: Have big manufacturers really fully come on board in working with Fairtrade or could they do better?
HL: The pioneers in Fairtrade have been smaller dedicated brands but recently, more big manufacturers have started to commit seriously to Fairtrade. For example, all Ben and Jerry’s ice-creams are becoming Fairtrade; you can buy Cadbury Dairy Milk and Whitakers chocolate as Fairtrade; and all Tate and Lyle sugar including recently from Fiji, is now Fairtrade. So some companies are beginning to use their scale for good. But of course there is such a very very long way to go – many companies have yet to answer our calls, while others are just dipping their toes in the water. But I am sure that the smart businesses will see that sustainable sourcing is only set to increase in the future and they will gain consumer support and loyalty by being early to committ seriously to Fairtrade.
EC: Is there anything else you’d like to say?
HL: Fairtrade is a really exciting and innovative movement. It is never easy – trying to make trade work sustainably for disadvantaged producers, for companies and the public – but it is always rewarding. For young entrepreneurs who like a challenge, it’s inspiring to work out new solutions to trade and to see how you can use the power of business to tackle poverty. The movement goes through waves – being driven now from Central America, then from Europe. I hope that soon producers and companies in Australasia will be in the driving seat.
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