Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Before you’ve finished your breakfast this morning, you’ll have relied on half the world.”
It’s a startling and difficult process to comprehend the level of interdependence at which we as individuals exist in the world today. Yet it is ever increasing, which is precisely why the issue of fair trade is pressing now, more than ever.
The “rigged rules” of international trade give preferential treatment to developed countries, pushing the global south even further into debt. I encourage everyone to educate themselves further on this issue to better understand the inequalities which exist in global trading relationships and to advocate for reform in the international arena in order to achieve the most fundamental principles of equality.
Fair trade offers a living wage for farmers in developing countries and provides communities with additional funds called “social premiums” to invest in community-directed projects such as water sanitation and school buildings.
When not traded fairly, many global agricultural commodities such as coffee, rice and sugar are being sold at world market prices below the cost of production. Farmers of these commodities cannot even make a profit, let alone feed their families or consider investing in community infrastructure. As consumers, we purchase our goods depending on a series of three attributes. “Search attributes” are the parts of commodities we are initially drawn to such as colour of packaging and size of product. “Experience attributes” include things such as the taste of a chocolate bar or the softness of a t-shirt. “Credence attributes” are the value of the construction process of the commodity—for example the labour or the time put into each product.
Currently, for the vast majority of products, there is no way to evaluate credence attributes. Fair trade labeling revolutionizes purchasing by offering consumers the ability to incorporate these values into their daily consumption. By purchasing fair trade-labeled products, one must “put their money where their mouth is” and advocate for just labour practices, while supporting them financially. We do not have to choose between being citizens and being consumers. Fair trade is a mechanism for those of us with disposable income to challenge the existing econo-centric method of consumption. Continue to demand change in the global sphere, but recognize that we have the power to make change everyday with what we purchase. Supply and demand do matter, and we can demand, with our dollars and with our voices, that the international trade system be reformed to give justice to the world’s poor.
For more information on fair trade and fair trade related initiatives check out www.maketradefair.com and www.transfair.ca.
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Kelly Bowden is the president of Queen’s Oxfam.
Coffee is the second most-traded commodity in the world. It’s so widely consumed and enjoyed that nearly every country that can grow coffee does so.
“Depressed coffee prices yield suffering in poor countries,” written by Paul Jeffrey in 2003 and posted on the Global Policy Forum website, outlines the history of the coffee trade. During the Cold War, the United States supported a treaty known as the International Coffee Agreement. It set up a cartel among producing countries and consuming countries to keep coffee prices moderated using a system of quotas. Over the years, coffee lost market share, mostly replaced with carbonated beverages. This cartel, however, could manipulate supply and demand to still ensure reasonable prices.
When the Cold War ended in 1989, the U.S. pulled out of the International Coffee Agreement, and the rest collapsed without their overpowering authority. Now free to produce an infinite quantity of this valuable commodity, Third World countries developed an enormous number of new plantations. Suddenly, the world production of coffee far exceeded the consumption.
Slowly, the market is recovering, though there are still millions of tons of surplus coffee sitting in warehouses. Developing nations need credit to diversify their economies away from coffee. While the New York Board of Trade’s commodity quotes indicated coffee prices hit five-year highs last year, the market is still unstable.
Another factor for low prices is that it’s not the coffee that’s important anymore. Coffee shops are now being promoted as a place to meet people, a place to relax. It’s about the atmosphere. With decreased importance on the coffee itself, the price of coffee also suffers.
Fair trade is a response to the difficulties of the farmers. It pays nearly double the normal price in return for reforms such as environmental protection, higher labour standards, sustainability, etc. It’s a well-proven method of collecting and distributing aid in a fair manner.
The basic problem with fair trade, however, is that it doesn’t address the underlying cause of the problem: the oversupply of coffee. In fact, higher coffee prices could adversely affect diversification away from coffee, and boycotting non-fair trade coffee may compound the problem of low demand and high supply by decreasing the overall intake of coffee. For this reason alone, companies like Tim Hortons may be helping more than fair trade could.
Fair trade is a treatment for the symptoms of these grievous economic issues. The solution lies in the hands of the people and governments of coffee-producing nations. A fair trade campus would ignore all the differing viewpoints people can have on this complex issue. Fair trade supporters should focus on educating to allow students to make an informed decision. Everyone, of course, has their own opinion.
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Cory Bloor likes Tim Hortons.
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