Co-op America’s Fair Trade Guide

Co-op America is expanding its Fair Trade work with more information on shopping Fair Trade. Their 12 Ways to Shop Fair Trade page has links for shopping and they’ve also produced a handy 24 page pdf guide with lots of additional info.

Their twelve ways:  Tea, Chocolate, Fruit, Sugar, Rice, Vanilla, Spice, Olive Oil, Wine, Sports Balls, Arts and Crafts, and of course, Coffee. How many do you buy Fair Trade?

Fair trade month: Co-opportunity

If you wanna celebrate fair trade month, go grocery shopping at Co-opportunity in Santa Monica. You’ll find:

Fair trade teas! You can get Choice bagged teas, or chilled bottles of Honest Tea in the refigerators.

Of course, there’s lots of fair trade coffee, mostly from Cafe Altura and Newman’s Own Organics.

Then there’s fair trade yerba mate from Eco Teas and Guyaki. I’m actually not a big fan of mate, but some people love it –

And fair trade cocoa from Dagoba –

Pick up a couple bars of fair trade chocolate from Divine and Endangered Species.

More dessert: Some of Ben & Jerry’s ice creams in the freezer are fair trade

There’s also fair trade sugar, just below the fair trade cocoa.

In the bulk area, you can get fair trade, organic basmati rice, both white and brown.

As you check out, you’ll see fair trade snack bars from Alpsnack and Maya.

And lastly, you can buy some pretty fair trade crafts from World of Good — They’re displayed on a stand near the cosmetics counter

Co-opportunity. 1525 Broadway @ 16th. Santa Monica. 310-451-8902. 7 am - 10 pm.

Appeal from Thai Rice Farmers

Buying Fair Trade Rice Enables Rice Farmers to
Keep Ancestral Land and Cultural Heritage

Americans are able to help rice farmers survive by requesting that Fair Trade rice be offered in their grocery stores.

by Shachar Erez, Los Angeles, CA

Engage, an organization comprised of former exchange students, sponsored a tour of Thai rice farmers to educate consumers about the worldwide plight of small farmers. In a lovely South Pasadena church, with the smell of fair trade coffee in the air, Pahkphum, Kanya, and Arat told their stories.

SOME PITFALLS OF THE GREEN REVOLUTION During the 1970’s, the World Bank and IMF unveiled what they called the Green Revolution, which promised increased farm yields due to new technologies. Many farmers took out loans to buy the new seeds and chemicals that would make them wealthy, while helping them keep up with an exploding world population. Unfortunately, the promises were not attainable. Although productivity increased, prices fell below costs due to countries that subsidized their farmers to give them a competitive advantage, making it impossible to keep up with the demands of their loans. Many farmers lost their land. Those who kept the land usually did so by leaving their families to work in big city sweatshops, creating a slum culture, or to venture to wealthier nations as illegal immigrants.

Before the farmers took loans to buy these new technologies, the only cost they endured was time spent sowing and harvesting their fields in the ways their ancestors have for generations. During the flood season, when rice began to grow, fish and frogs provided farmers with meat. They grew other crops for their families to obtain a fully nutritious diet.

The Green Revolution advised that they focus their energies on a single cash crop and purchase other foods with the abundance of money. Due to wealthy nations subsidies, the abundance of money did not happen. Because of the chemicals, the fish and frogs died off and because of the nature of monoculture, the land became infertile. People became ill due to exposure to harmful chemicals. Debts became overwhelming and malnutrition spread. People moved into city slums, with all of their inherent indignities, in order to survive.

Some farmers gave up. Some hung on in deep poverty, and still some began to form sustainable agriculture networks. They readopted age-old organic farming methods, which has been difficult to revive due to depleted soil conditions, and began to replant the diverse plants that they ate decades ago. They lost many strains of their plants, having turned the seeds over to seed companies in return for hybrid or Genetically Modified Organisms.

Still, wealthy nations’ subsidies threaten to choke them into defaulting on the loans that they now regret having taken. Vandana Shiva from Food First explains how the Green Revolution also creates water shortages by demanding cash crops that need more water than most areas naturally supply. She shows how reviving traditional methods, coupled with appropriate new techniques is a more effective way to feed our growing population sustainably and with dignity. (see Yes! Magazine – Winter 2004 – on agriculture)

FAIR TRADE = JUSTICE? Generally, Fair Trade Certification ensures above poverty payment, high quality products and environmental sustainability. Fair Trade Rice enables farmers to keep their land and their cultural heritage because it ensures that farmers are paid adequately for their product.

Organized into worker-owned cooperatives, farmers own their own rice mill allowing them to annually set their rice price instead of relying on exploitative middlemen. The cooperative uses the fair trade premium to provide for their families and spread alternative agriculture and fair trade to other communities by providing farmer trainings and support for farmers switching to organic production.

The transition to organic production requires a farm to diversify their plants and rebuild the soil so that it supports plants that provide more complete nutrition than non-organic farms. Kanya, Pahkphum, and Arat also note that since switching to fair trade organic production the environment around their rice fields, the quality of the rice and their personal health have improved.

One criticism of Fair Trade certification is that its bases in wealthy nations and need for travel to ensure compliance raises the cost of the product. Some companies operate respectfully without being certified, especially in the case of worker owned cooperatives. But, the only way to be sure is to buy Fair Trade Certified products from certification companies like TransFair USA that keep high ethical standards. One more possible crack in the Fair Trade field is the likelihood that when it becomes more popular, unscrupulous people will try to take over the name and weaken the standards, like in the case of Organic certification.

The presenters traveled thousands of miles, eating food that didn’t agree with their stomachs, with the hope and prayer that we begin to buy Fair Trade certified rice. They let the audience know that there are two brands of Fair Trade rice available to markets as of fall of 2005: AlterEco and Indus Farms. Because they are not available in most stores as of October 2005, consumers would need to ask their markets to carry these brands for them to be available.

The speakers invited people to visit them in Thailand to get a first hand experience. To learn how, contact Engage at www.engage-humanity.org Kanya, Pahkphum, and Arat ended the presentation by tying strings around the audience members’ wrists; a Southeast Asian ritual that strengthens relationships by reminding us of how fortunate we are to have come to know and care about each other.