Fair Trade History
What are the origins of Fair Trade?
The name Fair Trade is fairly new, as it has only been used now for around 20 to 25 years, but the impulse is something that has been going on for a long time. In its current form, it comes out of the post-World War Two where there were a lot of organizations that began to work with refugee communities, and these kinds of groups of less developed countries, and began to bring products in from those countries and sell it. That is where it first pops up, at least in a modern form. These alternative trade organizations were just doing in essence a different kind of trade. This was eveident mostly after World War Two, and that is probably the first occurence of that method.
How did the Fair Trade movement get started?
The Fair Trade movement is consumer-based, and it was people who saw the opportunity to make a difference and wanted to take the opportunity to take action. For Ten Thousand Villages, it started with a woman named Edna Ruth Byler, who was working in Puerto Rico and was at a school where they were teaching sewing, and she saw the beautiful things, the beautiful needlework that they were doing and saw the potential to bring that stuff back to the U.S. and to sell it. She began by bringing needlework from Puerto Rico and soon she had the woodwork from Haiti and other kinds of handmade items from different places. She started by selling them out of the trunk of her car after she had returned from these trips. She was working on selling the stuff and making sure the workers were being paid fairly, ensuring that money was going back to them. That idea of direct trade, that is behind Fair Trade, really started with people who made the initiative to make that trade direct, by the experiences they were having in different places. Edna Ruth Bylers is a great example of that - the idea of Fair Trade, and that an individual can make a difference just by taking action.
When did the first attempts to commercialize Fair Trade take place?
The movement towards commercializing Fair Trade was away from some of the initial ideas of Fair Trade. In its beginning, there were products from disadvantaged producers, but in some ways the exchange was almost one of charity and the product was given almost as a token of a kind of donation. What you see in the '40s and '50s, in that post World War 2 era, are alternative trade organizations that began to see that this is just business. This is something that belongs in the market place, that these goods are something that would sell anyway, they are more than just a donation and that this relationship is not one of charity, but one of trade. These alternative trade organizations began a different way of doing business by actually setting up shops and selling these goods from third world producers in developing countries, and by selling their stuff creating a relationship of trade that was directed into these more developed markets.
When is 'World Fair Trade' day?
World Fair Trade day is celebrated on the second Saturday of May. This past year it was celebrated on May 12th. It is a great day where, because a big part of fair trade is how we raise awareness and educate people, assuming that if people were just aware of the options out there that they would choose to buy fair trade. It is a day where all around the world people celebrate the difference that fair trade makes, and educate people on the options that are available through fair trade.
How has Fair Trade been viewed by the International community?
In general, there is the idea that fair trade works and that people just let it work. The international community has not necessarily always gotten on the side of fair trade and supported it in every way possible. But there are governments that recognize that fair trade is making a difference. The EU has had a commission that is working on fair trade, and whether or not fair trade certification could be a government certification, much like organic certified has come under government certification. In general, there is a positive perception of fair trade and the opportunities that fair trade presents, because it makes clear sense that, when we can make a difference simply by making this direct access to markets, it makes sense that we would do that.
How did Alternative Trade Organisations (ATO's) help start the Fair Trade movement?
What Alternative Trade Organizations did was make a place available where people could go to buy Fair Trade products, and where there was a point of direct access to the products that were being produced in developing countries. Alternative Trade Organizations, by opening up stores, made these Fair Trade products readily available so that people could, rather than just be discouraged about the way that markets sometimes exploit people in these developing countries, go to a place where they could really make a difference in the things that they buy. Alternative Trade Organizations began to make those options available.
How is the Fair Trade movement different now from its inception?
Moving away from where the idea of charity and Fair Trade goods being a kind of token of a donation being made or something like that to where Fair Trade is being seen as being able to compete in the marketplace. Fair Trade businesses are successful now not simply because people have a sense of charity but because it's the best stuff that's available. For instance, Ten Thousand Villages owes it's success to the fact that they have great stores, sell great stuff, and people want to buy it. Clearly, Fair Trade goods are moving into the marketplace and are competing with other goods because the cost is right and because they're great products, and because they're helping people in developing countries. When you bring all of those things together, that is the exciting future of Fair Trade - that it is competitive and it can survive in the marketplace, and is not just a good idea for people to help people in less developed countries, but is something that people want and it has a whole package.
What is the difference between 'Fair Trade' and 'financial aid'?
This was the cry of some of these alternative trade organizations in the 80s who realized that the answer was in trade, not aid. It makes for a great, easy-to-remember distinction, because aid gets us to a certain point, but the hope for developing countries is not just to receive more of our charity, more money in aid, but the work that we can do is to help provide pathways for sustainable development and for fair trade; that means direct access to developed markets.
