Fair Trade evening at BPEC
Fair Trade means giving producers a fair and stable price for a product, which covers the cost of producing the crop and therefore keeps communities alive.
Recently I was in a local bar which sold Fair Trade coffee and chocolate when I saw a leaflet advertising a talk at BPEC, so I went along. The evening started with a video on nut production. Sounds strange, but it was really informative.
The film showed how trade rules seem to work against poor countries. For example, richer countries have a significant import tax on a product, but sell their own version of the same product to poorer countries who have little or no import tax. Why the discrepancy? Because poorer countries are not allowed to raise certain import taxes, as a condition for borrowing money from multilateral lenders.
The result is that the poorer country cannot compete in a 'free market'. This is particularly hard for countries that rely on a few key exports.
After the film we were given a brief presentation by each of four guest speakers - Barbara Wilson, who organises the Brighton & Hove Fair Trade and Farmers Market at the Friends' Centre; Sally Smith of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex; Louise Mollring of Divine Chocolate; and James Lloyd of Fair Deal Partnership. The atmosphere was really engaging and the debate took off when questions were asked at the end.
I was amazed to hear that nearly all the world’s leather footballs are produced in a village in North India and some sell for nearly fifty times their manufactured cost. Overcoming trade problems has meant that it has taken five years to develop a Fair Trade football! This gives some idea of the difficulties faced. On a more optimistic note, there are now over 1500 Fair Trade products.
When we shop, we have to decide if we want to pay extra for them. Many consumers say yes if it means giving people a chance to sell their products at a fair price and give them a future to build on. If more people bought Fair Trade, then slowly the price of the products could become close to non-Fair Trade items.
Just think that every time you shop, your decision could be changing someone’s life for the better.