Fairtrade: Putting the Best of Humanity Back into Trade

Mrs Barnett says Fairtrade is a new way of looking at business. (Courtesy Of Montville Coffee)

SUNSHINE COAST, Australia—You may have heard people talking about Fairtrade and may have even heard the Fairtrade slogan, “Guarantees a better deal for Third World producers”, but what is Fairtrade and what does it do?

Fairtrade as described by the International Fair Trade Association (IFA) presents a change in the way trade is conducted based on “dialogue” between producers and retailers, “transparency”, a clear traceable path between payment of goods and receipt of those goods and “respect” for both the efforts and lifestyles of producers, as well as the retailers and consumers of those products.

For products to be labelled Fairtrade they must adhere to certain criteria, the most fundamental being Fairtrade Minimum Prices and long term contracts. According to Oxfam Australia, the Minimum Price acts as “a floor price that protects farmers from unsustainable downturns in the market and offers them stability and security of income".

A Fairtrade Premium is included which sees money from the sale of goods put back into communities for infrastructure, social and environmental requirements. In the highland of Papua New Guinea for example, Fairtrade premiums were used to improve local roads, making transport of coffee cheaper and more accessible, while in Tanzania, where there are over 90,000 farmers, money was spent on schools and facilities for the community.

Access to export markets and financing facilities are also part of the Fairtrade network.

Queensland coffee traders Karen and Richard Barnett use 100 per cent Fairtrade coffee in their outlet in the Sunshine Coast hinterland and believe Fairtrade is about putting the humanity back into trade.

Economic trade is being weighed down by “greed, corruption and prejudice”, Mrs Barnett told a forum on the Sunshine Coast recently, and Fairtrade is a way of addressing these issues.

“For me, Fairtrade is more than a trade practice or a group that I belong to. Fairtrade is one way that I strive to put into practice my belief in the oneness of humanity.”

Mrs Barnett said coffee was big business, one of the most valuable primary products in world trade, and yet for many of the world’s 25 million coffee farmers, coffee was “a labour intensive crop that frequently yields very little financial return”.

“Fairtrade standards for coffee growers act as a safety net against this unpredictable market. They provide security to coffee producers, ensuring that they will always get a price that covers their costs of sustainable production,” she said.

Mrs Barnett says Fairtrade is a new way of looking at business “in terms of the long term good of all, rather than the short term advantage of a few,” but Fairtrade ideals have, in fact, been practised in some areas for many years.

According to the IFA, Fairtrade began in America after the second world war. The Mennonites and Church of the Brethren were using trade as a means of helping impoverished women’s groups in Puerto Rico and Jordan.

The approach was then adopted in the Netherlands and under the title the Fair Trade Organisatie, spread through Europe.

In 1989 the International Federation for Alternative Trade, or IFAT, was founded by 36 Northern Fair Trade Organisations in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

IFAT then became the International Fair Trade Association, a global network of Fair Trade Organisations. Over 270 organisations in 60 countries form the basis of the network and membership is growing steadily. Approximately 65 per cent of IFAT members are based in the South (that is, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America) with the rest coming from Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim.

Australia was late establishing a Fairtrade certification system, but it is now the fastest growing Fairtrade market in the world, Oxfam reported.