Tea and Sympathy: The Growth in Fairly-Traded Foods

The morning cup of coffee tastes much more bitter when you know the farmer was paid 25-40 cents per pound to grow it and most likely languishes in poverty as a consequence. Most coffee is grown on small family farms which have little or no bargaining leverage in the larger market. Fair trade importers like Equal Exchange help farmers form democratically run cooperatives and ensure their coffee is sold for at least 90 cents a pound. More than doubling the money going to farmers barely impacts the price we pay because fair trade companies buy directly from the farmers, eliminating the middlemen—know as "coyotes" by Latin American farmers—who make enormous profits buying and selling coffee. According to Rodney North, the media relations officer at Equal Exchange, the company's revenue has grown steadily each year by an average 32% since 1986, which indicates the gradual but increasing public awareness of and receptivity to fair trade products. Equal Exchange also sells fair trade tea, cocoa products, chocolate and sugar.

Like most fair trade companies, Equal Exchange is a licensee of TransFair, the only third-party certifier of fair trade products in the US. The "Fair Trade Certified" sticker assures consumers a product meets international fair trade standards set by the Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO). Equal Exchange goes two steps further than required by FLO. Licensees have the option of providing credit to farmers. North says, "in 2003 Equal Exchange helped to provide over $1,000,000 in affordable credit to our 20+ coffee farmer co-op partners." While FLO requires that farmers be "organized in cooperatives or other organizations with a democratic, participative structure," the buyers and sellers are not held to the same standard. Equal Exchange, says North, is "organized as a democratic, worker-owned cooperative, with an unusually flat pay structure. No one may make more than 3 times the lowest paid employee. Also, after 80% of profits are re-invested into the mission, the remaining 20% is divided equally among all members of the Equal Exchange cooperative."

Where Fair Trade Certification works to ensure fair wages and labor practices, Rainforest Alliance Certification works to transform land-use and business practices as well as consumer choices to protect ecosystems. Recently, Plantation Arriba's chocolate bars have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance as being made from shade-grown cacao beans following traditional practices. Large mainstream companies are getting the message as well. Proctor and Gamble's Signature Collection coffees include one Fair Trade Certified blend and one Rainforest Alliance Certified blend. Following the lead of Starbucks, which introduced fair trade certified coffee in 2000 under growing pressure from Global Exchange's Roast Starbucks campaign, Sara Lee's brands Chock Full o' Nuts and Chase & Sanborn introduced fair trade certified coffee in 2001.

While fair trade certified chocolate, coffee and tea have been available in the U.S. since 1999, the market has only recently begun to diversify with more products including bananas and pineapples. More recently, grapes and mangoes became available in select markets, including Wild Oats and many local food coops. Christopher Durkin, the Director of Membership and Community Relations for Harvest Coop Markets in Massachusetts, says Harvest's commitment to fair trade is a social one and is "a way to do well by doing good."

In an intriguing development, in 2004 the nonprofit group Asia Network for Sustainable Agriculture and Bioresources (ANSAB) contacted the Rainforest Alliances SmartWood program to help establish sustainable farming of wild herbs in Nepal. Every year 15,000 tons of medicinal plants are harvested from Nepal's Himalaya highlands. Local communities derive much of their income by selling the plants and their derivatives—oils and resins—on the world market. According to Richard Donovan, the director of the SmartWood program, "it is not typical for us to certify non-timber forest products (NTFPs), most of our certifications focus on wood as the primary product. But we have certified maple syrup, brazil nuts, chicle, medicinal plants, and a few other NTFPs. NTFPs are part of the SmartWood system on a global level, so the potential to do more NTFPs is there." Working with the personal care company Aveda, SmartWood is helping ANSAB turn wild herb harvesting into a sustainable industry. They hope to have two Rainforest Alliance certified community forests by the end of the year. Aveda will be responsible for sourcing the wild-crafted oils from these forests, beginning with two medicinal and aromatic essential oils. Anthopogon, a species of Rhododendron, is said to help treat gouty rheumatic conditions. Xanthoxylum, known commonly as Winged Prickly Ash, has many aromatherapeutic uses.

The U.S. has got some catching up to do with Europe and the UK, which, in addition to the above products, have fair trade certified honey, sugar, rice, orange and passion fruit juice, cut flowers and even soccer balls. TransFair has been criticized by a handful of fair trade coffee roasters who have recently broken ranks with the certifier because of insufficient oversight. Matt Early, cofounder of Just Coffee in Madison, Wisconsin, says in a recent Christian Science Monitor article 'Without people outside the increasingly corporate-friendly TransFair system pushing for the original vision of a better model, [the movement] will be watered down into nothingness.' According to the same article, "Under the current system, chains like Starbucks can call themselves fair-trade friendly by purchasing just 1 to 2 percent of their coffee from certified growers." Currently TransFair sets the national standard for fair trade certification and is endorsed by many activist groups like Global Exhange, National Wildlife Federation and Greenpeace; and fair trade resellers like Green Mountain Coffee, D'Agostino Supermarkets.

Resources

For a complete list of U.S. stores offering fair trade certified produce and other foods, visit www.transfairusa.org/content/shop/bananas_wheretobuy.php

For more information and lists of companies offering fair-trade as well as organic and shade grown items, see our Coffee, Chocolate and Tea product reports.