Fair Trade Products are Becoming Mainstream

	Dee MacLeod not only prefers to shop at Ten Thousand Villages, she also volunteers to work there one day a week to help support the Fair Trade movement. Ian Willms for the Toronto Star

Dee MacLeod likes things that are both well-made and beautiful. She also believes in paying a fair price for fair work.

That’s why the 30-year-old not only buys jewelry, gifts, dishes, scarves and other goods at Ten Thousand Villages on Bloor St. in the Annex, but also why she volunteers to work there one day a week.

“You know the person (who made the goods) isn’t working in a sweatshop and is getting paid fairly for their work,” explains MacLeod.

She estimates that about half of the store’s customers are passersby attracted by something in the shop window.

“Others know the philosophy and come here because it’s a fair trade store,” she says.

A pioneer of fair trade before it became an international, mainly agricultural movement, Ten Thousand Villages has 18 stores in Ontario and 50 across Canada.

It began in 1946 with a Mennonite church worker who brought embroidered cloth from Puerto Rico.

Almost 65 years later, “commerce with a conscience” has gone way beyond colourful handicraft shops selling carved bowls, felt animals and beaded necklaces.

It’s been just over a decade since the founders of Ottawa-based chocolate-maker La Siembra began sourcing cocoa from a co-operative in Costa Rica and sugar from a mill supporting co-operative farmers in Paraguay to produce Cocoa Camino chocolate and other products.

In 2002, working with Transfair Canada to establish standards, La Siembra became the first registered importers of Fair Trade Certified cocoa and sugar in North America.

Cadbury recently began producing Fair Trade certified chocolate bars and, next year, the entire product line of British-based Green & Black chocolate bars will be Fair Trade Certified.

Most Canadian supermarkets sell some brands of Fair Trade coffee and tea, and Loblaws sells its own President’s Choice Fair Trade tea and coffee.

If you want something stronger than dark roasted java, LCBO carries Fair Trade wine and rum.

Fair trade seems to be a win-win situation for everyone involved: workers and farmers get fair wages, producers and corporations can promote social justice as a marketing tool, and consumers can feel good about helping Third-World countries as they sip their morning coffee.

But the principles and practice of fair trade aren’t without controversy. Some economists and academics are skeptical about whether it really is a force for good, or the best way to achieve social justice.

“The best criticism comes from inside (the) fair trade (movement),” says Michael Zelmer of Transfair Canada. “They see areas where the mechanisms are maybe not working the way we want.”

Some of those concerns focus on the increasing involvement of corporations and large plantations, to the detriment of the small producers and farmers whom fair trade was originally meant to help.

But Darryl Reed, co-director of the Business and Society program at York University, suggests plantations may actually benefit agricultural workers, if not farmers.

Outside the fair trade movement, criticism can be harsh. Some critics complain about the unfairness of subsidies and the near impossibility of guaranteeing strict standards throughout the system from planting to consumer.

The Adam Smith Institute in Britain, a conservative think tank in favour of free trade, condemned the fair trade movement as marketing hype and essentially unfair, offering a very small number of farmers a higher, fixed price for their goods at the expense of the majority of farmers who, unable to achieve certification, are left worse off.

Reed says most economists agree that fair trade is a good thing in theory and under ideal conditions. But it becomes more problematic in practice because there are very few buyers in most agricultural markets.

“About three companies control 70 per cent of the banana market in North America (Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte),” he says. “About five coffee companies have the same hold on the coffee market.”

He suggests fair trade has burgeoned in popularity because “people understand that farmers in the south (hemisphere) are not getting a fair deal and they want to help.”

The movement seems unstoppable. In 1998, there were 21,600 kg of Fair Trade coffee beans sold in Canada. In 2009, that had grown to 5.6 million kg.

Parker Mitchell, co-CEO for Engineers Without Borders in Canada, which promotes fair trade, offers this perspective: “What the blue box was for global citizenship in the ’90s, fair trade is now.”

“I think the idea of bringing a social conscience into product purchasing is going to get stronger,” he adds. “Whether it’s fair trade, carbon footprint, or green products, it starts as a fairly small minority on the alternative side of the spectrum, then hits a tipping point in the mainstream and becomes accepted.”

What is fair trade?

A clear set of standards defines fair trade, including:

• Paying fair prices for goods to ensure the producers cover their costs.

• Paying an additional premium to a communal fund workers and farmers can use to improve their social, economic and environmental conditions.

• Paying fair wages to hired workers, providing them housing when needed, and ensuring that health and safety measures are established.

• Paying farmers in advance (up to 60 per cent of value of the contract) so they don’t have to borrow from predatory lenders.

• Child labour is prohibited and all workers must be protected from discrimination and are free to organize a union.

• Following environmental standards that ban the use of some chemicals and genetically modified organisms, while encouraging better farming practices.

A third-party, non-profit system monitors and regularly audits companies and producers to make sure they’re meeting the standards.

A certification mark lets consumers easily recognize which products are certified. Fair Trade products available in Canada include cocoa, coffee, cotton, flowers, fruit, grains, spices and herbs, nuts and oils, sports balls, sugar, tea and wine.

Go to www.transfaircanada.ca to find the nearest suppliers.