Ordinary People And Fair Trade
What Fair Trade Certified products are available?
There are an increasing number of Fair Trade certified products that are available, and there's essentially very little that you can't buy Fair Trade. The first place to look for those products is in the places that you already normally shop. You may find Fair Trade Certified coffee at your local coffee shop, you may find Fair Trade Certified fruit at your local fruit stand or grocery market. So there are those kind of products that are immediately available, but through Fair Trade stores that may be available in your city, or through ordering online, there really is no limit at this point to what it is that Fair Trade organizations are producing. From sports equipment to clothing and all sorts of gifts and home décor and all of that stuff, to skin care. It's all out there; it's all available.
Where can I buy Fair Trade Certified products?
You can buy fair trade certified products in the places where you already shop, in local grocery stores and local coffee shops. Beyond that, look for local organizations in your community that might be selling fair trade certified products. Online is a great place to go, where there is a wealth of fair trade organizations that have a whole array of fair trade goods that you can purchase. Some churches or local organizations will hold fair trade festivals and that's often a good place to go locally and support other organizations that are interested in fair trade and trying to make fair trade available to communities around the world.
Are there organic certified Fair Trade products?
There are organic certified Fair Trade products. I would say on the whole, because of their commitment to using environmentally sustainable production methods, that most Fair Trade products are produced in a way that would be essentially organic if not certified organic. For Fair Trade coffee growers, there is an extra premium that they can receive by getting the organic certification and growing organic certified coffee. So there is the $1.26 a pound bottom price. There's a premium, a social premium, that goes back into re-investing in the community and then there's an extra premium that they can get, so it's a 20 cent premium for growing organic coffee. So there are incentives for Fair Trade growers to switch to certified organic methods and there's also assistance for Fair Trade growers to move towards using organic farming methods. But on the whole Fair Trade products are grown using, if any chemicals, a minimal amount of chemicals, and part of taking care of the environment is certainly moving towards more organic sustainable kinds of production methods.
Why do some products claim to be Fair Trade but don't carry the mark?
There are some products that actually carry a certification on the actual product, and so in the US we have the TransFair certification that looks like a little guy holding two buckets, and that certification actually appears, whether it's a sticker or it's actually on the label of the product. With those particular products they actually are labelled. There are organizations, even Ten Thousand Villages for instance, that sell fair trade products, but it's the organization itself that is certified through belonging to, say, the Fair Trade Federation or the International Federation, the International Fair Trade Associations. And so those, when shopping for a store of one of those organizations, not everything is going to have the same label on the particular product, but that's one of the things where asking questions is a great way to approach that. By asking "are the products that you carry fair trade?" and then following that up by "what certification are the products fair trade?" you are learning more about Fair Trade. And so while everything may not have that same sticker, there are examples of products that are fair trade and still don't have that same label.
What power does Fair Trade give to consumers?
More than even giving consumers power, Fair Trade really encourages consumers to take the power that they already had seriously and so even more than giving them a power that they didn't have, it encourages us to recognise that when we purchase things, our purchase power has the power to exploit or to empower people around the world and make decisions that work towards empowerment rather than exploitation.
What do consumers get out of Fair Trade?
In addition to being able to be chance to be part of this exciting relationship that is empowering to producers in developing countries and helping them to work out the poverty, the consumer also gets a win by getting a great product in. They are getting that product at a great price and are also getting a product that tells a story in that it's somehow humanising for us to have things that tells a story that represents different cultures. It's great to have that story in opposition to mass produced inanimate objects and when you buy a fair trade item you get something that tells a story by virtue of it being hand-made and by virtue of it's connection with the producer. In the end the consumer gets a better product because it's a fair trade.
