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Fair Trade Report
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| Cooperation Among
Cooperatives... Bringing Fair Trade Home series |
by Ruth Ann Smalley
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"The time is right for consumer
consciousness not only to look at the environment . . . but also the
rights of workers all along the supply chain who provide us with our
food." - Damara Luce, director of Just Harvest USA (Millman)
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Luce's
comments refer to labor abuses and slave labor on Florida's tomato
farms. In the March Gourmet Magazine, Barry Estabrook asserts that
"Unfortunately, involuntary servitude--slavery-- is alive and well in
Florida." About 90% of the domestic market's winter tomatoes come from
Florida. "Since 1997," Estabrook continues, "law-enforcement officials
have freed more than 1,000 men and women in seven different cases. And
those are only the instances that resulted in convictions."
Sleekly packaged and highly convenient, modern food disguises the ugly
truth about the supply chain: It operates under conditions we'd like to
believe belong only to other centuries or other countries. Pulling back
the curtain on the food supply, we see farm worker abuses, financial
hardships for small farmers, discriminatory practices in government-run
farm programs and threats to seed sovereignty for indigenous people.
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The
Food Web: Global and Domestic
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Even
if we limit our buying to within our borders, our purchases are
embedded in a complex, problematic system where food security, social
justice and environmental health are inextricably intertwined.
Awareness of these issues gave birth to the Fair Trade movement, and
now motivates the development of domestic Fair Trade. Honest Weight
Food Co-op has recently become part of the Domestic Fair Trade
Association (DFTA). We join a growing membership of other cooperatives,
organic associations, worker and family farm groups, and organizations
such as Just Harvest and Pesticide Action Network.
The Domestic Fair Trade Association recognizes that the conditions
necessitating Fair Trade policies internationally prevail at home, as
well. The DFTA lists its first mission objective as "improving the
livelihoods of family farmers, farm workers, and other workers in the
food, fiber, and agricultural products industries from farm to table by
promoting domestic fair trade through advocacy, endorsements, and
education."
Equal Exchange, a DFTA member, highlights statistics showing the
seriousness of the domestic farmer's plight. Between 1935 and 1997, the
"total number of farms in the U.S. fell from 6.5 million to just 2.05
million." To put that in perspective, "By 2003, there were just 1.9
million working farmers in the U.S.--less than the prison population."
African American farmers are an even more endangered group. "In 1920, 1
in 7 farmers were black; by 1998, just 1 in 100." As part of their
domestic Fair Trade program, Equal Exchange is partnering with the
pecan farmers of the Southern Alternatives Agricultural Co-op (SAAC).
SAAC is part of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance
Fund, itself a member of the DFTA.
The federation has seen a decline among black farmers "from over
100,000 owning 8 million acres in 1960, to less than 20,000 today
owning 2.3 million acres" (website). At a federation-sponsored farm
conference, new U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack acknowledged
that "Some folks refer to USDA as the last plantation, and it has a
pretty poor history of taking care of people of color" (Hagstrom).
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From
the Plantation to the Reservation
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"Supporting
the rights of indigenous people to land, and indigenous and all
peoples' right to food sovereignty" is another DFTA objective,
addressing native ownership vs. corporate exploitation and possible
destruction of native plant genomes. Another DFTA member, The Wedge
Natural Foods Co-op, was out in front with their domestic Fair Trade
buying program, partnering in 2003 with Minnesota's White Earth Land
Recovery Project to sell Native Harvest wild rice.
Native Harvest's site notes that in 2006, "the top ten commercial seed
companies . . . controlled more than 50% of the world's seed sales,"
with five companies controlling "75% of the world's cereal
commodities." This is an unhealthy concentration of power. The
potential for contamination of native strains by genetically modified
corn, threats to the wild rice genome by other engineering and
patenting research, and drastic rates of Type 2 Diabetes all lend
urgency to the work of protecting traditional native diets:
Today, less
than 20,000 Native families in the United States farm and only a small
percentage of these grow the heirloom crops of our ancestors.
Traditional cultural knowledge of ecosystems, agriculture, food
preparation, feasting and medicines are the key to the integrity of our
culture, and they are essential to the protection of biodiversity,
health and land stewardship. (website)
Commitment to fair prices, sustainable farming practices and worker
empowerment underpins the Fair Trade movement. The Domestic Fair Trade
Association is dedicated to ensuring that the standards and claims of
the movement remain true in practice, and as applicable at home as
abroad.
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Sources
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Domestic
Fair Trade Association: www.dftassociation.com.
Equal Exchange: www.equalexchange.coop.
Estabrook, Barry. 2009. Gourmet Magazine (March):
www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-the-price-of-tomatoes.
Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund: www.federationsoutherncoop.com.
Hagstrom, Jerry. 2009. "Vilsack says USDA must sharpen focus on civil
rights." CongressDaily (Feb. 23), Government Executive.com: www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0209/022309cdpm1.htm?rss=getoday.
Millman, China. 2009. "Tomato pickers' Fla. plight a growing concern."
Pittsburgh Post Gazette (March 4): www.postgazette.com/pg/09063/952960-84.stm.
Native Harvest: www.nativeharvest.com/node/251.
The Wedge Natural Foods Co-op: www.wedge.coop/about/about-fairtrade.html.
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