For starters there are 4 variables:
- the production method (ie is it cut-tear-curl or the “orthodox” method?)
- is it fannings & dust or a larger leaf category?
- Is it Organic certified or not?
- And depending on the answers to the 1st 3 questions, there might be a different price based on which country it was grown in.

If you can tell us those variables, we’ll try to calculate what the Fair Trade price should be.

With that said if you, or other readers, what to delve into this yourselves, including the critical element of the provision of affordable financing for producer groups, you’ll need to read at two documents.

The first is the “small producer organization standards” for tea:
http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/02-09_Tea_SPO_EN.pdf

Too often folks only look at the price paid, when it is in fact only one variable in the financial welfare of the Fair Trade growers, albeit the easiest to grasp. Getting access to credit is important, too. At Equal Exchange we’re very proud of our credit program and lament that far too often other Fair Trade buyers do not actually deliver on this – something that is not contested as so many growers are not in a position to push back.

In this document you’ll see that:
“On request from the producer, the Fair Trade payer must make up to 60% of the value of the contract available as pre-finance to the producer at any time after signing the contract. The pre-finance must be available at least six weeks prior to shipment.”

p. 5 of that document describes the pricing like this (I paraphrase):
“For all organic teas and for conventional teas made by the orthodox method (except fannings and dust) there is not Fair Trade minimum price. The paid price is a negotiated price between the seller and buyer. On top of the negotiated price the Fair Trade Premium must be paid.

For conventional teas made using the cut-tear-curl method and for conventional fannings and dust made by the orthodox method the buyer will deduct U.S.10¢ per kilogram from each Fair Trade premium payment. This amount will be paid directly to the producer, and must be used to support improvements in working conditions as part of ongoing certification and compliance with Fair Trade standards.

But the more substantial information is to be found at the shockingly long Fair Trade pricing table at;
http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/Feb09_Fairtrade_Minimum_Price_and_Premium_table_EN.pdf

You’ll see that for tea alone there are over 20 different pricing formulas that vary according to the type of tea and where it was grown.

For some tea there is no Fair Trade minimum price. For others it is as high as $2 per kilogram.

The Fair Trade premiums range from 50¢ to $1.10 per kilogram

And while we respect your politeness, there’s no need to hold back. If you, or any one, DOES wish to air criticisms we welcome it. Sometimes that is the only way to really reach the crux of an issue.

Let me tackle your Q in bullet pt fashion (just for expediency):

- When we began our research for a Fair Trade tea line in 1997 we wanted it to be:
* Organic
* from a small farmer organization
* high quality
* from a Fair Trade certified producer

- At that time no producer group met all 4 criteria

- Both our own environmental commitments and the nature of the U.S. marketplace made organic essential. A non-organic Fair Trade tea was very unlikely to be commercially viable.

- there were NON-organic, FT-certified small-scale tea growers in East Africa, but there was little prospect of them soon gaining organic certification and their relationship with the local tea processor (aka “factory”) was unexciting in the big picture and offered poor prospects of leading to the farmers working their way up the value chain one day.

- Conversely we soon learned that a remarkable man, Binod Mohan, who ran TPI (Tea Promoters of India) and whose tea gardens were used as the original template for Fair Trade tea certification, and who was the original champion of organic farming in Darjeeling, was actively trying to bring neighboring small-farmer co-ops into the premium, organic tea business. Further, he was already exploring partnerships with dedicated Fair Trade importers like ourselves and Drittwelt of Germany to whom TPI could export high quality, organic Fair Trade tea that included small-farmer tea leaf along with leaf from TPI’s own FT certified estates. Along the way he would continue to train the small-farmer co-ops in organic methods and on how to grow and harvest high quality tea. They would initially supply a small % of leaf to the blends and as they improved their operations and the yield on their plots they could supply higher %’s. The goal that TPI, Drittwelt, Equal Exchange and others shared was to provide an otherwise unheard of opportunity for small-scale growers to develop into self-sufficent, organic, tea growers & processors & one day even exporters.

- So in 1998 we began a partnership with TPI and introduced 3 bagged teas (which we still have: English Breakfast, Green, and Earl Grey) that blends TPI’s leaf with that from the Sanjukta Vikas (aka “Mineral Springs”) co-op.

- I don’t recall what the % of small farmer tea leaf was and I don’t know what it is now.

- More recently (2007) we introduced 3 more bagged teas (some with TPI’s direct participation, or at least their advice) with increased %’s of small-farmer tea leaf. This includes our Irish Breakfast (with 75?% leaf from the Sahyadri co-op in Kerala, http://www.equalexchange.coop/sahyadri-farmers-consortium), Green Magic (100% small farmer leaf from Sri Lanka), & Rooiboos (100% small farmer leaf).

- In 2007 we also introduced 4 premium loose leaf teas. At least both of the Ceylon teas are 100% small farmer leaf. I don’t know the %’s on the other 2.

- And in 2008 we introduced the 5 premium, large leaf, 100% small-farmer, pyramid bag teas (which are replacing the loose-leaf line).

SO, I think you see the trajectory of our program and how we have been trying to increase small-farmers access not only to the export market in general but also to the: high quality AND organic AND – most of all – the Fair Trade market.

Thank you for sharing your research on the Fair Trade Certified small-scale tea producers.

I checked out the Exchange Exchange website and read that “Our fairly traded organic teas are sourced directly from India, Sri Lanka, and South Africa with the small-scale farmer in mind.”

By stating “in mind,” does that mean that EE is aiming for – but has not yet achieved – sourcing all of its tea from small-scale farmers?

I don’t mean that as criticism of EE. I am assuming that it is simply not yet possible for a coop of the size of EE to source all of its tea from small-scale farmers. And I respect the commitment and efforts of EE to try to achieve this as soon as possible.

Am I correct in my assumption? Or am I wrong?

I only ask out of keen interest in fair trade and a desire to make every cup of tea I drink supportive of small-scale tea farmers.

And after checking the EE tea selection, I’m planning an order of some of the new loose-leaf teas.

~Simon

They are:

Co-op Agricole du Kendougou (Burkina Faso)
Mineral Spring Sanjukta Vikas (India)
PDS/Sahayadri (India)
Sukambizi (Malawi)
COCLA – Peru
SORWATHE (Rwanda)
Wupperthal (South Africa)
Heiveld (South Africa)
SOFA (Sri Lanka)
Rungwe (Tanzania)
Mpanga (Uganda)
Kayonza (Uganda)
Mabale (Uganda)
Igara (Uganda)
Thien Hoang Organic Tea Club (Vietnam)

I guess the Nepalese I had heard of were not in fact registered or were kicked off the list at some point.

I’ll look into this and try to give more specifics.

Besides Equal Exchange, Serrv International and Alter Eco also sell Fair Trade tea from small producers.

As for small tea producers that are certified Fair Trade, I’m aware of SOFA in Sri Lanka, Wupperthal and Heiveld in South Africa, and a handful of groups in India. I’d be interested to learn about others that you may know.

Phyllis

Which fair trade companies sell tea that comes from small producers?

Who are the small producers of tea that constitute the 2% of Fair Trade Certified tea?

For those truly decent plantations they can get their good practices certified by Rainforest Alliance. This gives them credit for what they’re doing while also enabling the Fair Trade movement to re-dedicate itself to small-farmers.

For conscientious importers/manufacturers they can make fuller use of the CO-OPERATIVES that are already on the FLO register &/or follow Equal Exchange’s lead and spend some time seeking out new co-op partners.

For retailers and advocacy groups, they can learn who is working with co-ops and seek them out.
Advocacy groups can also add this facet to the ongoing Fair Trade education programs and, at minimum, edit out anything they now use that implies that Fair Trade tea, flowers, wine, etc supports small farmers. Currently many broad statements about Fair Trade do just that.

Beyond that I’d like to remind folks that:

- Fair Trade was not created so as to merely create a “kinder, gentler” form of commerce that raised wages, etc. while leaving unchanged the basic structures of ownership and control. To do so would be to accept the status quo and the inequitable distribution of land, power, and other resources they have made plantations not only economically possible but inevitable. To extend Fair Trade certification to plantations is to try to ameliorate a bad situation, not to end it.

The aim of Fair Traders in the 1980’s was always more radical than this. Among other goals (like reconnecting consumers and farmers) it was to challenge rural elites such as plantation owners and other large land holders, merchants and exporters who for so long possessed vastly disproportionate economic and political power in their regions, a power they abused more often than not.

Hence Fair Trade’s core element of connecting northern importers (ideally committed Fair Traders or ‘alternative trade organizations’ as they were called back in the day) with democratic cooperatives of small farmers. So rather than try to get a better wage for person X on the Peruvian plantation or Mexican hacienda the goal was to do a complete end-around the local elites by creating a chance for folks like person X to farm his/her own land and work with his/her neighbors within a cooperative and become their own exporters and so on.
It was to get to at least some of the roots of what was so wrong in much of countryside in places ranging from Oaxaca to Sri Lanka.

I think it’s telling that a worker on a Fair Trade certified cut-flower plantation in Kenya, David Gikundi, HAD previously been a small-scale tea grower, but we can assume left it when he couldn’t make a living selling tea. (He’s mentioned in this 2006 Guardian article critiquing the Fair Trade flower industry http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/feb/13/gifts.kenya )

Wouldn’t we all like to see small-scale tea growers like Mr. Gikundi have the chance to make a go of it on his own land, rather than be forced to become a plantation laborer? Yet, the Fair Trade industry’s overwhelming focus on, and promotion of, tea plantations leaves small-farmers and their co-operatives out of the picture, and thereby is setting its aspirations way too low.

Many thanks to you for generating such interest on your web-site about this issue… and for all the other great posts related to Fair Trade. The discussion, and the energy, are great! In terms of your questions above, I’ll just give you some of my thoughts and others here can weigh in if they like.

A few years ago, at a membership meeting of FLO that several folks from Equal Exchange attended, there was – as always – much consternation about the fact that FLO was allowing plantations into the system. A number of producer organizations, in particular the CLAC – the Coordinating Body of Small Producers from Latin America and the Caribeean – and the African Fairtrade Network (AFN) were calling for a moratorium on new plantations into the system pending a review of the impacts. Producers and many traders were concerned whether benefits would really reach the workers and whether plantations in the system would adversely affect small farmer organizations who typically don’t have the same level of financial resources, market or credit access.

That hasn’t happened.

One of my concerns is over potential conflicts of interest. Typically, when organizations concerned about worker rights discover labor abuses on a plantation, part of the strategy to force change is to publicize the situation and put pressure on the plantation owners to improve conditions. When these same abuses are discovered on a Fair Trade plantation, it is against the interests of the certifying bodies to let these scandals fully come to light.

Personally, I believe that working conditions on plantations are better addressed by those organizations in the labor movement with a history, and effective strategies, to bring change. I just don’t believe that the Fair Trade system is the best place, despite all well intentions, to have impact. Perhaps what is needed is a separate third party certification system for “socially responsible plantations” that would be overseen by a more appropriate body with the experience, credibility and teeth to make a difference?

Thanks for continuing to ask good questions Zarah.

What do others think?