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| Weighing the Fair
Trade Scales |
| Cooperation Among
Cooperatives... Fair Trade Report |
by Ruth Ann Smalley
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"What is the meaning of
democracy, freedom, human dignity, standard of living,
self-realisation, fulfillment? Is it a matter of goods, or of people?
Of course it is a matter of people. But people can be themselves only
in small comprehensible groups. Therefore we must learn to think in
terms of an articulated structure that can cope with a multiplicity of
small-scale units." –E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics as
if People Mattered
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Schumacher's
quote raises questions even as it offers answers. How small? What role
does a group's organization play in whether people can "be themselves"
in it? Cooperatives—whether businesses, worker associations, arts
guilds, or co-housing groups—grapple with such questions for their very
existence. For many, the work of being a group while still being
themselves is tremendously challenging. Almost 40 years after
Schumacher wrote this, we still lack a global, articulated structure
for coordinating multiple small scale units. On the contrary, trends
have been toward fewer and larger units, with massive corporations
controlling ever larger domains.
The Fair Trade movement is working toward Schumacher's vision. Phyllis
Robinson, of Equal Exchange, describes Fair Trade as "a holistic
approach to economic development and political empowerment and
self-determination." Her colleague Nicholas Reid explains that it is "a
system which was founded by and for small farmer cooperatives," in
order to "support organized small-scale producers and connect them to
export markets. It was a response to the failure of plantation
economies, and development policies designed around centralized
ownership and production, to affect transformative change or economic
growth that empowers and benefits people."
So, can Fair Trade certification be extended to larger scale units? Can
Fair Trade empowerment work at the plantation level? The Fair Trade
labeling organization, TransFair USA, believes in making the effort:
"The Fair Trade System includes certification of hired-labor situations
because of the significant benefits to be had for workers. We believe
that not including workers on tea, banana and flower plantations
excludes a landless population that is disadvantaged and needs our help
to improve the conditions in which they work" (quoted in Patriana).
Certification requires high standards for pay, conditions, housing, the
right to unionize, and application of the Fair Trade premium for worker
benefit. Many social change movements have historically been in tension
between those who favor measures to ameliorate poor conditions, and
those seeking to overturn the structures responsible for those
conditions and to build alternative structures.
Thus, some see Transfair's position as ameliorative, Equal Exchange's
as transformative. Both may be necessary, as farreaching change takes
time. As Equal Exchange's Rodney North points out, "Fair Trade is a
tool of limited size. After 20+ years, Fair trade still represents just
3% of the U.S. coffee market" (Patriana). North argues, however, that
by certifying plantations, "the Fair Trade stamp is actually helping to
solidify the market dominance of plantations," perpetuating an uneven
playing field for small farmers.
This is particularly an issue when it comes to tea, as a recent
TimesOnline article explains: "In the tea market, Fairtrade is taking
on an industry that for decades has been accused of exploiting its
workers. The task is complicated because most workers are hired by
large tea estates that have hardly changed in
a century. Estates are run as small kingdoms …" (Bahra). Big
plantations also have greater access to giant companies wishing to
exploit the appeal of Fair Trade labeling (Gogoi). This inequality, as
Sarah Scarborough of Fair Trade Teas notes, makes it "difficult for
small holders to compete internationally."
Fair Trade Rooibos is a case in point. Scarborough describes what
happened to the small farmers of Wupperthal when "industrialized
operations like Bergendal [plantation] recently sold an excess of
Rooibos on to the U.S. market at a price so low that communities like
Wupperthal were unable to compete." While new pricing standards were
implemented to account for these differences in scale, the marketplace
is still biased in favor of large producers.
This bias may work against us all, in the long run. As journalist
George Monbiot points out, considerable evidence now supports the 1962
assertion of Amartya Sen, Nobel economist, that "there is an inverse
relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they
produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield."
Sometimes as much as 20 times greater, although this has been largely
ignored by many governments and agricultural organizations.
For Monbiot, Fair Trade is about small farmers; he reaches a
thought-provoking conclusion. "The structure of the global food market
is changing so rapidly," he says, "that fair trade is now becoming one
of the few means by which small farmers in poor nations might survive.
A shift from small to large farms will cause a major decline in global
production, just as food supplies become tight. Fair trade might now be
necessary not only as a means of redistributing income, but also to
feed the world." High stakes, indeed. For Fair Trade tea from small
farmers, opt for any of the Equal Exchange selections. Eco Teas' Yerba
Mate comes from a family farm in Argentina, and their Rooibos comes
from "an indigenous cooperative of San farmers." These are available in
bags or in bulk.
Also in bulk from Frontier, we carry Jasmine from the Da Zhan Shan tea
cooperative, Rooibos from Wupperthal, and Ceylon tea from the Small
Organic Farmers Association in Sri Lanka. Otherwise, it may take some
sleuthing to find out whether or not your favorite Fair Trade tea is
from a large plantation.
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| Sources: |
Bahra, Parminder (2009).
"Fair trade is struggling to change practices on tea estates and tackle
abuses." TimesOnline (Jan. 2): www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article5429905.ece.
Eco Teas, www.worldpantry.com.
Frontier Natural Products, www.frontiercoop.com.
Gogoi, Pallavi (2008). "Is Fair Trade becoming 'Fair Trade Lite'?"
Business Week (June 18): www.businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2008/db20080617_775861.htm.
Monbiot, George (2008). "Why Fair Trade may be our only hope." (June
12): www.alternet.org/story/87832.
Patriana, Zarah (2009). "TransFair's position on plantations," and
comments by Rodney North. (Jan. 12): http://fairtrade.change.org/blog/view/transfairs_position_on_plantations.
Robinson, Phyllis (2008). Small Farmers. Big Change. (Blogs of July 23
and 28): http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop.
Scarborough, Sarah. "From the Field: Rooibos productions' implications
for growers."
www.fairtradeteas.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29.
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