Fair Trade Stories
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Discover social justice in what you buy
Fair trade is a global not for profit network dedicated to supporting poor farmers and communities in third world countries through trade. Fair traded coffee, chocolate and bananas maximise the return to the farmer through cooperative producer arrangements which support education, community development rights of women and which do not tolerate child labour. Social justice and local empowerment are at the heart of the fair-trade network and underpin the brand.
What does social justice and local empowerment mean in practice?
MINKA is a Peruvian fair trade producer organisation, working mainly with Quechua producers located in the Andes. MINKA means ‘working together for the greater good of everyone’ in Quechua, a term derived from traditional values. With 3,000 artisans and farmers MINKA has governance arrangerments the ensure that farmers views have primacy. Women now hold most of the leadership positions These small-holder farmers in the Peruvian Andes are now able to determine their own futures and destiny by earning a sustainable income. The fair-trade movement began in the 1940s when Oxfam UK and Self Help Crafts in the US began selling goods made by disadvantaged communities in Eastern Europe after WW2. Since then, many other groups have joined to form a global fair trade network. They include Trade Aid in NZ, formed in 1973 by Vi and Richard Cottrell who had worked with Tibetan refugees in India and on their return home to Christchurch began importing handcrafts. Trade Aid is a NZ social enterprise:- a business with a social purpose run along commercial lines. Through fair trade arrangements it develops partnerships with groups, such as farmer cooperatives who seek self-reliance and for social and economic justice. Trade Aid’s partners in Peru included MINKA and recently Cooperativa de Servicios Múltiples Cenfrocafe Peru. The latter was formed by coffee farmers in northern Peru to find more equitable markets for their products. The group places a high priority on providing better educational opportunities for their children and on defending their rights
CENFROCAFE coffee farmer
Trade Aid coffee is for real
Congo coffee is amazing
Trade Aid buys coffee from the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The supplier SOPACDI is a cooperative made up of many ethnic groups in a country which has been devastated by violence and poverty. These farmers speak several different languages but collaborate to improve their families’ lives and their communities through coffee growing. Using their coffee bean revenues, they have built coffee plant nurseries, offices, a cupping lab and washing stations. SOPACDI offers its farmers training to combat soil erosion, plant new seedlings from the cooperative nurseries and learn about organic composting and mulching.
Buy your coffee from the Sidama Coffee Farmers’ Cooperative Union, Ethiopia
Sidama is a co-operative union representing around 70,000 coffee farmers in the Sidama region of southern Ethiopia. Its members receive benefits from premiums earned on Fair Trade NZ sales which fund improvements to schools, improved access to electricity, construction of roads and bridges, provision of water pumps, and construction of health clinics in Ethiopia.
Enjoy the coffee produced by Mayan farmers and support them at the same time
Guatemala’s ASOBAGRI (Asociación Barillense de Agricultores) is an association of K’anjob’al Mayan coffee and cardamom farmers. It works to improve its members’ quality of life through the sale of their product at fairer prices by helping members to produce higher quality coffee, and through implementation of development programmes in farming communities.
Trade Aid chocolate has delicious connections
In 1973, when Trade Aid first began in Christchurch, they aspired to make the world a better place through fair trade. The issues that motivated Trade Aid then are even more important today.
In 2012 they bought able to buy chocolate making machinery from a company in Australia that had closed . This equipment has been used and upgraded to produce great quality chocolate in Christchurch. The centre of this story however is where the ingredients come from.
Trade Aid imports from farmer cooperatives in the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Paraguay. They supply the core ingredients of cocoa and sugar through the global fair-trade network.
Cocoa farmer working with CONACADO.
Cacao trees are grown by small-holder farmers in the Dominican Republic who hand-harvest their cocoa beans with controlled fermentation and natural sun drying. They sell through their membership in CONACADO, a cooperative with 10,000 members, which was formed to give farmers direct access to international markets and technical assistance so as to improve quality and achieve better prices.
Cocoa also comes from Peru through Norandino, an association of 7000 small-scale food producers.
Sugar is organically grown by small-hold farmers in southern Paraguay. 20 years ago a small group of sugar farmers who had always been vulnerable to the impact of low and erratic sugar prices, formed the Manduvira cooperative which today comprises over 2,000 farmers.
Try the exquisite Guatemala Fair Trade coffee
Lots of places sell Guatemala coffee. Some of this coffee reaches New Zealand through large companies that distribute coffee throughout the world. Fair trade means that the coffee is from the local farmer with as few intermediaries as possible, so that as much as possible of the money from what you pay for a cup or a bag of coffee goes to the farmer who produced it. This is generally through a cooperative arrangements which ensures fairness between different farmers including women.
Here's the story of a Guatemalan woman farmer supplying coffee through her cooperative which reaches New Zealand
Sebastiana Martinez Gomez
ASOBAGRI is a cooperative located in the mountains of Huehuetenango in Guatemala. Local farmers have worked for years to achieve consistent, specialty-grade coffee favoured by many leading micro-roasters. The cooperative provide organic and sustainable farming training and support funded by the Fair-rade premiums.
Women farmers such as Sebastiana have a leading role in running the business and have been supported to become successful farmers
She says “ASOBAGRI has shown us how to properly grow new plants. My parents just used to plant seeds straight into the ground. I’ve also received training in composting, using shade trees to protect my coffee better, how and when to cut down old trees, and how to clean away foliage from under the trees. We get training in how to make terracing, and how to use organic fertiliser. Everything we do here is hard – nothing is easy. But I do it so that my children will see my example of how to work hard, and so that I will be able to leave them something when I’m gone. I’m very happy to talk to you. I’m much less shy since I became a member of ASOBAGRI’s board. If it wasn’t for the support of my group I wouldn’t be brave enough to talk to you!’
Sebastiana’s husband died while trying to cross the nearby river; it is a long way to walk to reach the nearest bridge and many people cross the river on foot rather than make the walk, but it is a risky thing to do.
Trade Aid help small farmers in Thailand to diversify
Trade aid imports and sells organic rice from the Green net Co-op in Thailand.
Green Net supports farmers in rural Thailand who strive to protect their environment, earn a sustainable livelihood and care for their families and community. Education and training are important parts of their work in supporting farmers.
Here is a profile of one of their farmers, Janpang Postihing.
Janpang Postihing is a Thai rice farmer and a member of the Green net. Through green net she has received an interest free loan and has used it to drill a water bore. With the additional water she can now access, she produces vegetables for home consumption and for sale at the local market. Her family’s income increased by about 30% as result of having better access to water
Fair Trade tea farmer in India use premiums to good effect
Fair trade pricing includes a premium which goes back to the farmer to help them achieve their development aspirations. Here's a story of a producer of tea which is imported into New Zealand by Fair Trade.
Sobana’s story is a genuine firsthand account. Know that you're doing good when you buy fair trade tea. It might be hers.
Sobana Prakash has one acre of tea. She has been a member of the Small Farmers Tea Project in Kerala since 2004.
“I’m happy to be a member of this group. The prices I receive are always higher than normal market prices, but I get other benefits too; I’ve received grants that have allowed me to buy manure, a goat, and ten chickens'. Her hens lay approx five eggs per day; some she eats, others she sells.
Life is better now. I’ve been able to help put my son through university study and with the extra income I now earn, I was able to help cover the cost of a fibroid operation I recently had.”
The members of the Small Farmer’s Tea Project (SFTP) in Kerala, India are predominantly marginalized small producers and members of tribal groups who have suffered from social and economic injustice for generation.
Notes & References
https://www.tradeaid.org.nz/content/uploads/2017/03/Research-Report.pdf;
Cocoa farming
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61511456;
https://www.facebook.com/fairtrade.nelson/;
https://www.fairtradenelson.org/post/fair-trade-guide;
Fair trade Nelson Tasman
Radio NZs Local Democracy Reporting includes the Nelson Weekly https://www.rnz.co.nz/ldr/about;
Fair trade is a global network of community groups who collaborate in purchasing products from local producers in third world countries. Fair trade is currently working with over 1.9 million farmers and producers of handcrafts and clothing. In Nelson goods sold both through retail outlets, cafes and our fair trade shop.
https://www.fairtrade.net/library/2020-2021-annual-report;
Fair trade anz
https://fairtradeanz.org/what-is-fairtrade/who-we-are;
https://cdn.fairtradeanz.org/app/uploads/2020/12/21114020/FT_Annual-Report-2020_web.pdf’
Fair trade buys bananas from farmers in Peru Colombia and the Dominican Republic. These are the bananas you see in your supermarket. they hit the impact of these arrangements on local farmers is evaluated. Findings include strong commitment to gender equality and to not employing children. This is in contrast to the large producer organisations where these issues are much more equivocal.
https://files.fairtrade.net/publications/Tracking-Fairtrade-Impact_Bananas_household-survey.pdf;
Free trade has what it calls a FT premium, this is simply a levy to support local community development projects
Fair trade international has a board on which third world farmers groups are represented along with people involved in distributing the products
Small scale farmers and workers are amongst the most marginalised in the global trading system
https://www.fairtrade.net/about/how-fairtrade-works;
Trade Aid is accredited by the World Fair Trade Organization’s (WFTO) Guarantee System, the first international fair trade system that verifies organisations’ compliance with all principles of fair trade.This is the first system that is able to deliver the promise of fair trade compliance throughout the entire supply chain.
Trade Aid is a social enterprise creating fairness in trade. We work with small food and craft producers around the world, and we support and educate kiwi consumers to join with us in creating a world where trade is fair for all. Founded right here in New Zealand in 1973.
Since 1973, Trade Aid has been wholesaling beautiful craft and organic food products to hundreds of other kiwi businesses, who we’ve welcomed into our fair trade family of businesses. It’s a whānau that puts people over and above all else – Kiwi businesses who know it matters who makes our products, and that they are being treated right.
Our fair trade partnerships
Social enterprises help bring change to the world. Trade Aid’s long history has proven that fair trade relationships can provide producer communities the support they need to solve problems and fulfil their aspirations.
Today we source our handmade, organic and fair trade products from 59 trading partner organisations across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Palestine and the Pacific.
These long term trading relationships represent hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers and artisans involved in fair trade.
Trade Aid works with nearly 1200 businesses
Great kiwi coffee
Beginning in 2003 local roasters started buying and roasting Trade Aid’s green fair trade coffee beans by the sack.
Today many of New Zealand’s most well-known coffee brands now source a large amount of their supply through Trade Aid’s fair trade coffee relationships.
These businesses have helped make us New Zealand’s largest importer of fair trade coffee. This is great for coffee drinkers and great for the producers who grow it.
Great kiwi chocolate
Starting our own sweet revolution in 2014, we opened the Sweet Justice Chocolate Factory in Sydenham, Christchurch.
Owning our own chocolate factory is better for our grower partners who have the opportunity to own more value in the supply chain. It’s also better for the kiwi businesses who can join us in making delicious products with our fairly traded cocoa and sugar.
New Zealand chocolatiers and manufacturers make the best artisan chocolate and in working together we make sure everyone is getting a fair deal