Small Farmers. Big Change.

Part I: They’ve got the cashews. We’ve got the market. It’s a perfect match…

Coffee. Tea. Chocolate. Bananas. Almonds. Olive Oil. Geobars.

Last year we decided to add cashew nuts into the mix of new products we sell to food co-ops and consumers. You could sense the excitement in the meeting rooms of Equal Exchange from the moment the decision was made.

For over twenty five years, food co-ops have been some of our strongest allies. They helped Equal Exchange launch the fair trade movement when we were just starting out, bringing Nicaraguan coffee from small farmer co-operatives into the U.S. for the first time.

Much has changed in these past 25 years. Today, many consumers know; at least in rough terms; what fair trade is about. The idea of knowing where your coffee – chocolate, tea, even bananas, comes from – is not an unfamiliar concept to shoppers at food co-ops and we have many to thank for this revolution in the food system and how we choose our food products.

But nuts? Dried fruit? Trail mix? Even though these products can all be purchased in packages and in bulk at our local food co-ops, how many of us know anything about them; where they come from, who grows them, and under what conditions.

Do you?

Ever since the U.S. fair trade certifying agency, Transfair USA, (now called Fair Trade USA) went rogue, walking away with the intellectual property of the fair trade movement (and stealing the name “Fair Trade” along with it), Equal Exchange has renewed our efforts to keep Fair Trade authentic. We’re doing this not only by educating consumers about what’s happening in the world of fair trade, but also by redoubling our efforts to support small farmer co-operatives and strengthen small farmer supply chains from farmers to consumers.

One way to do this is through the delivery of more fair trade products direct to food co-ops from small farmer organizations.

Enter cashew nuts. It’s 2012. We’ve discovered our first source of high quality, organic, DELICIOUS cashew nuts from a small farmer co-op in El Salvador. Check, check, check, and check. Add to all that perfection, something else: the co-op members of Aprainores have a very moving story. These farmers all participated in El Salvador’s 12-year civil war to fight against structural poverty, grave injustices, and tremendous repression. When the war ended, each of these combatants was given a few acres of land in the south of the country on an old cashew plantation. One portion of the plantation, where 20 farmers now live, is located on the island of Montecristo, a beautiful nature reserve filled with mangrove estuaries and endangered bird species. By buying these cashews, consumers are not only getting some of the best tasting nuts we’ve sampled, but are also helping to ensure that these farmers improve the quality of their lives and continue to protect the fragile ecosystem that they are stewarding. Another check.

Truly, what could be better?

Well, for me, there’s another level of excitement: I used to live and work in El Salvador; I know this part of the country intimately; I even met with these farmers many years ago when the organization I worked for was offering co-op development trainings to newly formed co-ops. It’s been years since I’ve known anything about what has happened to them and now Equal Exchange is in a position to support them by selling their cashews into the U.S. market. CHECK.CHECK.CHECK.

We received our first shipment this past February. The food co-ops and the consumers love them. (Actually, the staff loves them so much that we had to be careful or they might never have made it to market.) We sold more than we imagined possible. The excitement builds. For the first time, a consumer can buy organic cashew nuts on Fair Trade terms, get amazing quality and flavor, AND know the whole story behind the product. Click here for their full story and photos of the APRAINORES farmers.

Next: Part II: Nature intervenes.

Photos courtesy of Equal Exchange. Photographer:  Julia Hechtman

Not-for-profit organization Fair World Project has criticized changes to Fair Trade USA’s labeling policy, which allows chocolate to carry the seal when it contains a high percentage of other ingredients like sugar that are not fairly traded.

To learn more about this newest assault on the Fair Trade system whereby standards are lowered and consumers misled for the sake of corporate interests, please click here.  Please also consider sharing your opinion in the one-question survey at the end of the article.

As always, feel free to leave us a comment with your thoughts about any aspect of this labeling issue.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 24, 2013 

CONTACT:    Kerstin Lindgren, Ph: 617-680-9862

                        Email: kerstin@fairworldproject.org

                        Ryan Fletcher, Ph: 202-641-0277

                        Email: ryan@mintwood.com
                        

Fair World Project: Fair Trade USA Undermines Fair Trade Principles and Producers to Accommodate Products Such as Hershey’s “Greenwashed” Chocolate

Fair World Project Believes that Diluted Labeling Policy Hurts Farmers, Misleads Consumers, and Creates Market Disadvantage for Truly Committed Fair Trade Brands

PORTLAND, OR – Fair World Project (FWP), a project of the Organic Consumers Association, the nation’s largest network of green and ethical consumers, opposes Fair Trade USA’s recent changes to its labeling policy, which undermine fair trade farmers, consumers and committed fair trade brands.

The policy change closely follows an announcement that Hershey would tap Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) as one of three certifiers to help implement the chocolate empire’s new “sustainability” plan. Though FTUSA’s policy change is labeled “draft” through the end of the month, it is clear they will need to make these changes if they plan to work with large multinational corporations interested in limited fair trade engagement, such as Hershey.

FTUSA will permit the use of their fair trade seal on products such as chocolate that identify the specific fair trade ingredient in small text under the seal, without requiring that any other ingredients be used in fair trade form, such as sugar which is often the major ingredient in chocolate bars, bottled teas and ice cream. FTUSA will not require a minority percentage disclosure that could inform consumers and remedy the deception that the seal otherwise conveys that the product is majority fair trade.

The proposed labeling policy falls below the standards upheld by the larger fair trade movement, and are detrimental to the very concept of fair trade. Fair Trade USA is electing to maintain its subpar threshold of just 20% fair trade contents to use a front panel label on a product with no requirement to list the percentage of fair trade ingredients. Other fair trade certifiers such as IMO’s Fair for Life have a threshold of at least 50% or a requirement to list the percentage of fair trade ingredients. Fair Trade USA will not require brands to list the actual percentage of content that is fair trade. They are also eliminating their previous policy on commercial availability which required brands to use all fair trade ingredients that are available from a fair trade certified source. In addition, Fair Trade USA will exclude dairy from its calculations, instead of just water which is more typical.

Together these policies mean that a milk chocolate bar that contains more of both sugar and milk than chocolate, with chocolate as little as a third of total dry weight, could still have a fair trade label on the front of the bar. Hershey has made no commitment for other ingredients in the supply chain, even though sugar is the main ingredient in many of their products, such as Hershey’s Kisses. Therefore a milk chocolate bar with as little as 30% fair trade content, and which contains more sugar than cocoa, will compete in the market with chocolate bars that are mostly or entirely fair trade—including important fair trade ingredients like fair trade sugar. Because Hershey spends less on cheap sugar produced under exploitive labor conditions, the Hershey’s 30% fair trade chocolate bar will be less expensive than a chocolate bar made with fair trade vanilla, sugar, and other fair trade ingredients in addition to fair trade cocoa. This fair trade hoax takes advantage of consumers’ intentions to buy fair trade products, creates unfair competition for the fully committed fair trade brands who use a maximum of fair trade ingredients in order to have a fair trade seal, and most importantly harms the farmers and farmer co-ops that supply truly fair trade brands with fair trade ingredients.

A certification program’s labeling policy impacts consumer understanding, the ability of fully committed fair trade brands with higher fair trade ingredient costs to compete in the marketplace, and opportunities for farmers to benefit from fair trade markets—both farmers already working with committed fair trade brands and farmers who would wish to contribute fair trade ingredients such as sugar to chocolate bars. Calling a product ‘fair trade’ when the main ingredient is not fair trade is misleading to consumers, greenwashes the fair trade market, and ostracizes fair trade farmers, in this case fair trade sugar farmers, who supply fair trade ingredients to committed brands that can no longer compete in the market.

To address these issues, Fair Trade USA is ethically obligated to adjust all aspects of these diluted, special-interest policies. Increasing the threshold to 50% for a front-panel seal or requiring brands to prominently display the minor percentage of a product that is fair trade if they use a seal, would not mislead consumers and eliminate unfair competition. Either of these changes would also create opportunities for farmers, as brands seek out more fair trade ingredients to provide a competitive advantage by increasing overall fair trade content that fair trade consumers are looking for. Also requiring all ingredients that can be fair trade to be fair trade is crucial to provide fair trade markets for farmers.

Disclosure of the percentage should apply also to those products where the threshold for a fair trade seal is not met, so that when a product mentions a fair trade ingredient, it is clear what percentage of the total that ingredient is in the final product.

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Fair World Project is a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote organic and fair trade practices and transparent third-party certification of producers, manufacturers and products, domestically and abroad. Through consumer education and advocacy, FWP supports dedicated fair trade producers and brands, and insists on integrity in use of the term “fair trade” in certification, labeling and marketing. FWP publishes a bi-annual publication entitled For a Better World. For more information, click here: 

For more details and examples read our current blog post:

How many of you shop at a farmer’s market when you have the chance?  Especially when you’re traveling, don’t you love stumbling upon a local farmer’s market wherever you are?  What better way to get to know a new place than by seeing what food is being produced in the area, and to see, smell, and touch the products; having the chance to meet the actual growers and learn what’s involved in the cultivation and processing of the food you’ll soon be eating is an extra bonus.

Two years ago, when Equal Exchange decided to bring Geobars into the U.S., I couldn’t help but think of this new product in much the same way:  that these cereal bars were akin to walking through an international farmer’s market, where apricots from Pakistan, blueberries and honey from Chile, rice from India and Thailand, and raisins from Chile and South Africa were being presented… only in my scenario, through our Geobars, we bring the farmer’s market direct to you!

We’re pleased because these new products have enabled us to partner with roughly half a dozen new groups of small farmer organizations, giving them access to the U.S market, higher prices, and fair trade premiums for social and economic development projects.  Additionally, we’re excited because our system of trade is really a new form of globalization; in this case, one we’re proud of: in order to bring the Geobars into the U.S. market, we are partnering with a like-minded Alternative Trade Organization, Traidcraft, in the U.K.  Geobars were first launched in the U.K. in 1999 by Traidcraft, an organization that has been working with a group of grape farmers in South Africa.

Today, four of us from Equal Exchange are here in Chile, about to visit several fair trade small farmer co-operatives, one of whose products can be found in our Geobars. Our first visit is to Apicoop, a group of about 350 beekeepers and blueberry farmers that have been selling their products into the European market on fair trade terms, for the past fifteen years.  The organization started in 1980 as a church project formed to help support small scale farmers trying to survive under Pinochet’s Chile.  In the late 1990s, they made the decision to become autonomous and today are totally independent from the church.

According to Chino Henriquez, Apicoop’s general manager, one of the greatest benefits from their participation in the fair trade market is that almost all of the 1000 children and youth whose families are members of the co-op are today able to attend school.

This is our first trip to visit Apicoop and we’re both excited to be here and grateful to our friends and colleagues at Traidcraft for introducing us to these producers and partnering with us in our first venture to bring an international farmer’s market across the Atlantic direct to your breakfast table.

I spent yesterday morning walking around Valdivia, discovering some of the city’s unique qualities. There’s a bustling, but very manageable downtown area, a shady central park, river walkways and outdoor markets, a university campus with a beautiful botanical garden, and much more I haven’t gotten to explore yet. The city is heavily influenced by the Germans and you can see it in the architecture, with lots of modern buildings, brightly painted wooden houses, pubs and at least one brewery. Chino, (Juan Eduardo Henriquez) the General Manager of Apicoop, explained to me over dinner last night that many of the buildings are made with wood, not only because forests abound, but because wooden structures sway and can therefore survive earthquakes better than other materials. After the 1960 earthquake (the largest earthquake ever recorded) which destroyed the entire city and the economy for the following twenty-five years, no one’s taking any unnecessary chances.

The only house that survived the 1960 earthquake.

In the afternoon, I treated myself to a one-hour boat ride down the River Valdivia, to the River Cruces, and back, via the River Cau Cau, Chile’s shortest river. Diego, our tour guide, pointed out the sea lions which hang out behind the open-air fish market, some fancy houses, eucalyptus forests, and the dramatically changed landscape resulting from the flooding which occurred after the earthquake and tsunamis in 1960. He told us that Valdivia was shaped by four competing, sometimes clashing, economic forces: the university, industry, forestry, and tourism.

All the wetlands in this photo used to be solid ground.

Last night over dinner, I asked Chino and his wife, Anabella about Diego’s comments. Chino explained that Valdivia is certainly a university town with one of the best universities in South America, the University of Austral. He told me how the students were staunch opponents of Augusto Pinochet and well-respected (in certain circles) for having held the country’s longest strike (45 days) against his military dictatorship. However, while Valdivia is fortunate to have some of the cultural, social and economic benefits that universities bring, there are definite causes for concern. The cost of education is exorbitant and students can expect to graduate with debts equivalent to a home mortgage. Two graduates who want to get married, each carrying a burdensome debt – now equal to two home purchases – will never be able to repay their loans.

Furthermore, the universities are turning out “professionals” in such numbers, that there aren’t enough jobs for them all. “There are more veterinarians here in Chile than there are cows,” Chino commented, “and no one wants to be a tradesperson”. He went on to tell me that 70% of the university students are the first in their families to receive a higher education. On Friday Lily had told me that the average age of the beekeepers at Apicoop is about 55, and that while their greatest pride and success is that their children are now able to go to school, the downside is that the youth no longer want to return to agriculture to make a living. Instead, they migrate to the cities, where there are no jobs to support them. As Chino said, “In the countryside, at least one can have chickens. In the city, there’s only poverty.”

We continued our conversation, over some highly-awaited Chilean Cabernet, into the late evening. The rest of my colleagues from Equal Exchange arrive tonight and I’m looking forward to seeing them and eagerly awaiting tomorrow when we make our first visit to meet Apicoop’s honey and blueberry producers.

Arriving in Osorno

I woke up this morning in Valdivia, the principal city in this southern province of Chile.   Quite a beautiful one, situated at the juncture of four rivers:  Rio Calle Calle, Rio Valdivia, Rio Cruces, and the Rio Cau Cau.  I arrived here around 7:00 pm last night and as we drove past the Rio Valdivia, lined with a beautiful walkway, it was full of strollers, kids playing, and crowds gathered around food and beverage stands, giving it a holiday feel.  The river was full of crew boats, kayaks, and tour boats which take visitors around the various rivers to the nearby forts, cloud forests and other attractions for which the region is known.  I’m told the coast is 20 minutes from here and the infamous lakes district another hour.  I have one day before the rest of my Equal Exchange colleagues arrive and I’m about to check out the possibility of going kayaking.  If that doesn’t pan out, I’ll try to go hiking in the Oncol Park, a nearby protected reserve.

It was a long trip to get here with an earlier failed attempt, all of which make the fact that I’m finally here even more exciting.  From Boston, the Air Canada flight to Santiago connects in Toronto.  We tried to visit in February when the blueberry season is in full harvest and the honey production at its peak, but a blizzard in Toronto wreaked havoc on our travel plans.  I know: Who goes to Chile via Toronto?  Please don’t even ask!  The bad luck was compounded when we tried to reschedule on the next available flight, three whole days later, only then to learn that since Valdivia was in the height of its summer season, it was no longer possible to book a domestic flight into the region.  Flights for the entire week were sold out. Sadly, we gave in and gave up, cancelling the entire trip.

Finally, I’ve made it to Valdivia.  My colleagues arrive tomorrow and we begin our whirlwind tour, starting here in the south where we will visit Apicoop, the producers who provide us with the honey and blueberries that you can find in our Geobars.  We then fly back to Santiago and on to Los Andes to visit Mi Fruta, the co-operative that produces the juicy raisins also found in our Geobars.  These Flame Raisins are so big and so tasty, we plan to make them part of a Trail Mix, our newest product which will soon hit the grocery store shelves.  Since we’ll be passing back through Santiago midweek, why not also make a brief overnight stop to meet the folks at Sagrada Familia, the Fair Trade small farmer organization that produces Lautaro Wines?

This time around, there was only one minor glitch in the travel plans.  The airport in Valdivia is closed for several weeks due to reconstruction, so we are flying into Osorno and then going the remaining distance by land.  This means I left my house in Boston at 5 pm on Thursday and arrived in Valdivia just after 7 pm on Friday.  It doesn’t seem like it should take that long to get to Chile, but there you have it.   When I arrived in Osorno, Lily Becerra was waiting to drive me to Valdivia.  Lily is an agronomist who has been working with Apicoop since 2000.  She’s young, quite beautiful, and really friendly, making me feel quite at home immediately.  During the two hour drive to Valdivia, Lily told me about her work with the beekeepers and the various plans the staff and members of the co-op have for the future.  I told her about Equal Exchange, how we were organized and about our newest strategy to support small farmer organizations by developing and introducing a whole new array of Fair Trade small farmer products into the U.S. market.

I’m closing today’s post by just admitting that every time I have the opportunity to visit one of our small farmer co-op partners, meet the staff and the producers, learn about their organizations and products, their histories and visions, successes and struggles, I appreciate over and over again the unique role Equal Exchange plays in the U.S.  Unfailingly, on every visit, I remember how proud I am to work for an organization that continues to go against the flow, working tirelessly to build small farmer supply chains, support small farmer organizations, and educate North American consumers about the vital role these groups play; and the critical role they, as consumers and informed citizens play, in keeping small farmer groups thriving, caring for our natural resources, and keeping us connected to our food sources, ourselves, and the world in which we all play a critical part.

I’m on my way out of the hotel before I lose the better part of this day; I promise to fill the next blog entry with photos of Valdivia.

Raúl del Águila Hidalgo, General Manager of Equal Exchange’s trading partner COCLA and a leader in the international fair trade movement, died suddenly on February 13.  EE’s Tom Hanlon-Wilde shares this memory:

Raul de Aguila and Tom Hanlon-Wilde welcome Equal Exchange’s Food Co-op buyers Megan Thompson, Sanya Brown, Judy Harper, Larry Crabb

This is how I remember Raúl – kind and patient as in the photo, intelligent and inspiring as in the video.

I first met Raúl in 1998 in Quillabamba, Cuzco, Peru.  He had recently left a comfortable, important government job for an uncertain and quixotic task — re-building the Agrarian Cooperative of La Convención and Lares.  COCLA, the acronym the organization is known by, was founded by farmers who had been among the first sharecroppers in South America to revolt against the fedual conditions on the large plantations.  When they had won land rights, those farmers organized COCLA and and by the 1970′s grew it into one of the four largest co-operatives in Peru. But in the economic chaos of the 1980s, the organization had disintegrated.  Village by village, farmer by farmer, Raúl re-built trust and encouraged differences of opinion to re-engerize the coop. Within a decade, COCLA was once again one of the top coffee exporting organizations in Peru.  As other co-ops sought to learn from COCLA, Raul spurred the creation of the National Coffee Board of Peru to bring together all the coffee co-ops in Peru to advocate for political change.  Within half a dozen years, that group forced changes in two laws to benefit co-operatives.  Working internationally, Raul was a leading voice of the Coordinating Body of Latin American and Caribbean (CLAC) fair trade organizations, eventually helping to create a separate farmer-controlled fair trade certification organization (FUNDEPPO and the Small Farmer Symbol – SPP).

Today when small-scale farmers meet in villages across the Global South, they have a more resources to use thanks in part to Raúl.  When parishioners discuss social justice in church basements across the Global North, they have a few more options thanks in part to Raúl.  I will miss Raúl’s kindness, patience, and intelligence but will carry his inspiration into tomorrow.