Today begins a very important day – the beginning of Fair Trade fortnight. I will admit, in the early days I cared but was pretty happy to put a few fairtrade bananas in my shopping basket, and feel I’d done well. Now, well I’ve been on a journey of awareness raising, learning to genuinely care and live a life of action.
Fairtrade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay sustainable prices (which must never fall lower than the market price), Fairtrade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives.
As a human being I care about others, I imagine what it would be like if it was me, unable to put food on the table for my children, working in conditions which would be illegal in the western world, and, well it makes me realize I have a responsibility. Can I stop everyone buying cheap so they can give into their want? No! But I can stop myself from buying cheap, I can commit to buying fairtrade options and boycotting shops which have poor working conditions. I can commit to reading and learning more, giving, praying and encouraging others.
The campaign this year centers around the big swap – what item you currently purchase could you swap for fairtrade. It could be coffee, sugar, tea, dried fruit, juice, biscuits and cotton. I would encourage everyone reading this to commit to at least one. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at how much more I could do and yet I know it takes one action to being a journey of change. For this fortnight I will be giving money to the fairtrade campaign and I have now committed to buying fairtrade cotton, this is a big step for me but I know a step that needs to be taken.
I have always believed the more we know about the reality of a situation, the better our choices will be. So I leave you with some of the best articles which have inspired me to make the change
The dilemma of ethical clothing: is saying ‘it’s a complex issue’ still a defence for our addiction to cheap clothes?
War On Want article and a very moving article entitled Fashion Victims
And for the ultimate education and inspiration, begin reading War On Want
The relationship between Orangutans and Biscuits/Cookies! As uncovered by Panorama! (not quite about fair trade but certainly linked!)
I’m happy to say I’ve given up cheap clothing and now simply go without if I can’t afford to buy quality or can’t find it second hand. What about you? What do you buy fairtrade? Are there any changes you plan to make?
We buy fair trade bananas and coffee. It’s hard to find too many fair trade items around here, and also hard to find local items, which is one reason why I cannot wait to have a huge garden, then most of what we eat will be super local. We do buy fair trade on the items that we can get though. Clothing isn’t really too big of an issue with us as 90% of what we wear has been thrifted.
That’s great Jennifer! Yes, very similar re clothing at my end too, but I’m going to try for the non-second hand to make it fairtrade if it comes from abroad!
A good post. I get fair trade coffee and chocolate, but also go to 1,000 villages shops run by Mennonites. They have many fair trade things for sale that you could use for your home or for gifts. Is there anything like this in the UK? Also, FT, (ha, your “FT is for frugal trenches and also for fair trade) – do you know about Kiva? It’s a group that lets you make small loans to people you chose, people in third world countries who use the money to begin or continue small businesses to support their families. I loan money to them and am happy to see the results. The loans do their job and almost always get paid back so you can loan them out again.
lol I hadn’t noticed the FT
No, not a mainstread equivilent of 1,000 villages – I remember it well from my time in Canada, but I do buy “good gifts” which come from the same concepts!
Yes, I adore Kiva!!
Unfortunately I’ve so far failed to find anybody supplying fairtrade/ethical clothes in ‘big person’ sizes
Oh that is sad Sarah! I’ll keep my ears to the ground. Could you email the fairtrade organization and see if they know of any?
Thank you for reminding us about fairtrade fortnight. We struggle to balance cutting down living cost with ethical shopping, so this will be a good time to re-examine what we are buying.
Great Compact!
Thank you so much for writing about this, I had no idea it was fairtrade fortnight! I would like to switch my sugar, coffee and tea as well as bananas. Thanks for your encouragement!
I hope you are able to do so Kathryn! It will make a world of dfference!
I know about FT in general but don’t know how to know if it is FT or not, except perhaps by avoiding the shops with the cheapest items and this probably isn’t sure fire. I have from time to time, purchased FT coffee as it seems to be the only thing labelled here and readily available. Sometimes I’ve seen chocolate labelled FT. I look for chocolate from a lady who carefully buys her bulk chocolate. I buy truffles from here from time to time as I abhor chocolate slavery. You should watch the you tube video on Slave chocolate or blood chocolate…enough to really make you stop buying chocolate.
Joyful, it will be labelled. I’ll send you some info when things calm down a bit!
Thanks 4 this post
I haven’t given it much thought and I couldn’t say where I would find such things. . . the closest I’ve seen is coffee in one of the stores we shop at. Fair Trade Clothes?! What a concept.
I’ll send you some websites GC, probably not until next week now though!
I make sure any coffee and chocolate I buy is fairtrade. Pretty much everything else – including food – I buy locally or from op-shops.
My criteria is that I will buy “Australian made and owned” as much as possible. The closer an item is grown/made to my home city the better. Takes a bit of time to research but it’s worth it.
Cath
Sydney
That’s a great motto Cath! I too do local first!
We have Fair Trade items for sale at our church. I can’t normally afford them but we buy from them for gifts. Most of the people who receive them are so glad to get things from Fair Trade. And it’s a way to spread the word.
That’s wonderful Kathy! What a brilliant idea!
Only buying Fair Trade is something I’ve wanted to do since I was in highschool and learned about sweat shops in China. But how to do it consistantly and stay in our budget is somewhat overwhelming. Sometimes I buy food directly from farmer’s – we have a lot of little farm stand’s in East county San Diego. That’s all I’ve been able to do so far.
Andrea some of the websites have some ideas, I’ll get them posted soon. The fact you care is just brilliant
I buy chocolate fair trade, and I don’t drink coffee or tea. I’ve started buying some cotton products fair trade. I guess what I’ll work on next will be fruit– I try to buy local, but for things like bananas, that doesn’t work and fair trade is important.
Yes, me too Aydan. Local first, but whatever isn’t!
Dark Chocolate bars. Sometimes coffee or tea. Haven’t purchased clothes yet — they are a little hard to find as stylish or affordable in my area…though if I make them a priority, they could be affordable.
lol I love that last line!
Great post on Fair Trade lifestyles and products! It is exciting to see how many people are supporting the movement. Mayu (www.shopmayu.com), is fair trade certified clothing and apparel company that prides itself in 100% hand-knit alpaca products. Our products are not only considered eco-fashion but they are super stylish! Check out our site for great items (especially for the cool Spring and Summer evenings in the UK!). We are happy to ship international.
Best,
Kate
Sugar, tea and bananas. G is the coffee drinker in our home so we are currently trying to find one he likes. Would like to buy more FT, will have to look into that one.
Lisa
That’s great Lisa!!
This is a really wonderful piece you’ve written. I think I am probably a bit like you were in the past. I do try to buy fairtrade coffee and bananas but then think my job is done. I should do more, thank you for the push!
That’s great Elizabeth, do share what you find/changes you make!
It just so happens I bought Fair Trade Organic coffee beans yesterday. I don’t usually grind my own beans and I’m not sure I will continue to. We do have a local FT coffee company called Just Us! which not only provides wonderful FT coffee & tea products, but educates the community as well.
When I use up these beans, I likely will go have my beans ground and just buy a smaller amount.
I didn’t know you could get FT bananas. Our markets tend to have either Chiquita bananas or organic. I go for the organic whenever I can.
Melanie that’s brilliant! Yes fairtrade bananas are huge here, hopefully Canada begins to stock them aswell!
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That Panorama programe was a real eye-opener, wasn’t it? When they came up with the list of products with “dubious” palm oil I was horrified. I buy so many of them.
Horrendous. Another reminder of how the big money making corporations call the shots with absolutely no regard for anything other than amassing vast profits.
One more thing to think about when I am putting things in my shopping trolley!
I was so happy to find DIVINE chocolates! Fair trade, delicious, and they even make hot cocoa!
I try to buy fairtrade bananas, coffee, tea and chocolate but must admit to having slipped a little over the past year when our financial circumstances changed quite a bit.
We’re on more of an even keel now so I’m determined to focus on this again rather than just looking at cost.
Sometimes it can be hard to work out which is the best decision though – local, organic or fairtrade? I guess it just depends on each individual item.