Fair Trade Movement Gaining Ground

	Fair-trade cocoa is changing the lives of individual farmers and whole communities by providing them with a larger share of trade profits. Cadbury's best-selling chocolate bar, Dairy Milk, is now made with only fair-trade cocoa. Photograph by: Daniel LeClair, Reuters, Postmedia News

Even major retailers buying into ethical marketing practices  

In the highlands of Guatemala, coffee farmers in 11 villages now receive $2 a pound for their green beans instead of the 30 cents they were paid previously. Equally important, their village co-operatives receive $6.50 a pound to use for schools, wells and other village improvements.

In Ghana, thousands of cocoa growers are guaranteed prices that will finally raise them well above subsistence level. Their villages, too, are prospering from their share of cocoa revenues.

In factories in Asia, workers sewing soccer balls know they will take home enough money to feed their families and not be forced to labour under impossible sweat shop conditions.

And it's all thanks to fair trade.

Fair trade, the idea that First World countries can use their spending power to help Third World countries, is gaining in both acceptance and scope, experts say.

What started with ethically minded small groups of consumers in North America and Europe willing to pay a premium for products whose growers got a fairer share of trade profits, is now moving into the mainstream markets.

In a groundbreaking move three years ago, giant chocolate maker Cadbury PLC of England announced that its best-selling bar, Dairy Milk, would be made only from fair trade cocoa.

Last year, those bars went on the market in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. This summer those Dairy Milk bars are coming onto the market for sale here in Canada.

Cadbury will not charge a premium for fair-trade chocolate bars.

"We made a business decision to absorb the extra costs," says Alison Ward, who was Cadbury's head of corporate social responsibility when the initiative was launched.

"It goes back to our Quaker roots. We believe in doing well by doing good."

The range of fair-trade products seems to grow every day. Anyone shopping at the Loblaws chain, for instance, will find a range of fair-trade coffees on the shelves.

Indeed TransFair Canada, the national organization that certifies fair-trade products, now says certified fair trade commodities and goods are available in a dozen categories.

"The movement really started with motivated individuals and small health food and specialty shops but now it is being embraced by major retailers," says Michael Zelmer, director of communications at TransFair Canada in Ottawa. "Consumers are starting to demand fair-trade goods.

"Europe is well ahead of us in this respect," he adds. "In Switzerland, for example, 50 per cent of the bananas sold are fair trade."

Fair trade is based on the concept that farmers or workers should get a fair share of the eventual selling price of products and not be exploited by manufacturers, commodity brokers or middle men.

That share should be enough to let them support their families and invest in the necessary equipment, fertilizers and other goods necessary to keep their fields productive.

But in many cases, fair trade goes well beyond basic economics, says Ann Armstrong, director of the Social Enterprise Initiative at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto.

"There are often social issues involved, such as the organization of co-ops, which in turn invest in local improvements such as schools, wells to supply clean water and local health care clinics."

Fair trade may also involve ensuring that no child labour is involved in production.

In sum, it is a form of aid that shifts decision-making power from the aid sponsors to the aid recipients.

"It essentially allows those in developed countries to use their spending power as consumers to help struggling farmers and workers in Third World countries," says Dirk Matten, Hewlett-Packard chair in corporate social responsibility at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto.

But, he notes, fair trade has been slow to gain strength in Canada.

"Here it is only 10 per cent of what it is in the United Kingdom and Europe," Matten says.

"In Europe its roots lie, I think, in an ethical and religious base. In Europe and Britain there is a fair amount of guilt associated with the colonial past. Trade patterns have also been quite different there," he added.

There is also a world view in Britain and Europe quite different from that in Canada, he adds.

"Canadians are by nature more introspective. I believe only 20 per cent of the population has passports. There has just not been much interest in what happens in developing countries."

Yet all the experts agree fair trade seems to be coming into its own.

As giant multinationals get behind the fair trade movement, niche products quickly become mainstream products, and the advertising and marketing dollars devoted to mainstream fair trade products help raise awareness among buyers of the issues involved.

Consumers begin to understand they can help improve the lives of people still struggling to survive in disadvantaged countries.

"I think having major companies get behind fair trade may mean a very big difference in the success of the movement," says Matten. "Especially if they do not charge a premium for fair trade products.

"That will mean that consumers can make choices based on ethical considerations not financial ones."

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