I was recently in Honduras for the Fourth General Assembly of the CLAC (the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Small Fair Trade Producers). Interestingly, Day 1 opened with a great presentation on climate change by Yvette Aguilar, El Salvador’s official Rapporteur to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
There’s a reason why this talk featured so prominently on the agenda: climate change is having an enormous impact on the world's agricultural producers. It’s a true global injustice that, while countries in the global South may not be significant contributors to climate change, these producers are the ones constantly being forced to mitigate against and adapt to its devastating effects.
This week is Co-op Week, and we're launching our brand new national campaign for co-ops and credit unions: Co-operating for Fair Trade. So what do co-ops have to do with Fair Trade? A great deal, actually.
Let's start with Fair Trade producers in the global South. The majority of these producers are organized into co-operatives or associations, which they own and govern democratically. Fair Trade cocoa, sugar, cotton, coffee, herbs and spices all come exclusively from small producer organizations with an elected Board of Directors, a transparent administration, and a General Assembly of producers or their delegates. This means that, through the co-operative model, producers unite to meet their common economic and social needs.
