Coming Soon: Farmer-Owned Fair Trade!
The first Fair Trade farmer-owned certification system, referred to as the Small Producer Symbol (SPP, for its Spanish acronym) will arrive this fall on Equal Exchange coffees in food co-ops and natural food stores across the country. Ten years in the making, the SPP certification system represents the small farmers’ persistent attempt to ensure a more just trade system for their fellow farmers everywhere. The colorful SPP logo will initially appear on Equal Exchange coffee bags and bulk coffee bins, and will soon become more prominent throughout stores. While the SPP itself is just a little logo, in actuality, the real symbolism of this new Fair Trade seal is anything but small. This bold step forward reflects the fact that today the very folks for whom the Fair Trade movement was built are taking a leadership role in shaping their own destiny. The potential impact this new system will have on small farmers, their co-operative organizations, and the entire Fair Trade movement could be quite profound indeed.
The Roots of the Conflict
In the early 1980s, a division in the Fair Trade movement resulted in the creation of one international certification system with two distinct ideologies. The early founders of Fair Trade recognized that small farmer organizations trying to access the market were operating on an unfair playing field. The founders’ goal was to create a system that could right the wrongs of hundreds of years of colonialism and unjust trade. Once the system was underway, other traders wanted a faster way to put Fair Trade products on the shelves and decided to open up the system to large-scale plantations. The fact that plantations have one owner (versus being owned collectively by a democratically run, small farmer organization), and generally have more access to resources, it is usually faster and easier for them to move products from origin country to market. This means that plantations, with their ease in accessing bank loans, infrastructure, market information, technical assistance, and networks, will almost always carry the same advantage over small farmers that Fair Trade was designed to address.
Eventually, the international Fair Trade certifying system, Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO) allowed plantations to become a source for almost all Fair Trade products, with the exception of coffee, cacao, and a few other categories. Small farmer coffee and cacao organizations, typically the most advanced and successful Fair Trade producers, have been living with the fear since the division occurred that the Fair Trade system will one day open their products to plantations as well. Should this happen, many believe that they will once again become marginalized and lose their hard-won market access. After all, if it’s easier to source coffee and cacao from large-scale plantations and still call it “Fair Trade,” why wouldn’t multinational corporations simply take the easier route and ignore the small farmer? In coffee, it took 15 years of Fair Trade before coffee farmers began to see a positive impact on their businesses and in their lives. Sourcing from plantations in tea and bananas has prevented the growth of a strong small farmer movement in these two categories. (For more information on how growth in small farmer tea was inhibited by plantations, click here.
The farmers’ fear became more of a reality 10 years ago. At the 2003 annual Specialty Coffee Association of America conference in Boston, coffee certainly wasn’t all that was brewing. Alongside the aromas emanating from the brewing of exotic coffees, big trouble was simmering as well. The foreshadowing of conflict was evident from the loud voices and angry faces of representatives of small farmer co-ops, Fair Trade roasters, alternative traders, and other Fair Trade activists, all of whom were tightly packed in a room at the Hynes Convention Center listening to the words of Paul Rice, CEO of Transfair USA, FLO International’s U.S Fair Trade certifying agency (today known as Fair Trade USA).
Rice was lobbying for a change in standards; he believed plantations should be allowed in the Fair Trade system as sources of “Fair Trade” coffee. He claimed that large companies and corporations wanted access to plantation products and that there wasn’t enough small farmer Fair Trade coffee on the market. The crowd was wild with outrage. Most small farmer organizations had far more coffee than they could sell on Fair Trade terms and many more organizations of small coffee farmers were waiting for buyers to get themselves listed on the Fair Trade register of certified producers. Finally, against a storm of protest and outrage, Rice acquiesced and agreed to drop this controversial strategy.
By the Farmers, for the Farmers: Why a New Fair Trade Certification System is Necessary
Although Rice publicly backed down at the SCAA conference, small farmers, roasters, and other Fair Trade activists knew it was just a matter of time before the issue came up again. The pressures to grow a system quickly, the needs of plantations and big corporations, and the money behind it all, were heavy reminders of how decisions are made and how trade typically occurs. Sure enough, in September 2011, Transfair USA announced its decision. Taking the name Fair Trade USA, the organization left the international Fair Trade system that had given it birth. Just days later, it announced its new strategy, “Fair Trade for All”, with a certification system allowing plantations in coffee and cacao.
Small farmer organizations weren’t idle. The Coordinating Body of Latin America and the Caribbean (CLAC) had been meeting for 10 years to strategize how to keep Fair Trade from being stolen out from under them. Finally, they had their solution: the Small Producer Symbol (SPP). CLAC has now created its own certification system, run by the non-profit group, the Foundation of Organized Small Producers (FUNDEPPO). The system is impressive, with General Standards incorporating four dozen criteria for small farmer member organizations, including maximum individual farm sizes and a maximum percentage of farm work performed by hired farm workers. Buyers who use the SPP must meet nearly three dozen criteria, including a minimum of five percent annual volume growth in program purchases. Perhaps most impressive, the SPP is run and governed by the farmers themselves. After decades of this movement being essentially managed by offices thousands of miles away from source, farmers are now in the driver’s seat.
This fall you will begin to see the first Equal Exchange coffee products appear with the SPP symbol on them. Trust that while other Fair Trade products may come from plantations, SPP coffee will never sell out. It will always be authentic. It will always be small farmer.
FAIR TRADE
Every time I go to a market new to me, I first ask the manager if the store caries “fair trade” items. I’m lucky if the manager even knows what I’m talking about. I have never met a manager which knows the difference between the two contending fair trade certifying organizations.
I am a supporter of Equal Exchange and I will support SPP if I can ever find out how to do so. The problem is that EE and SPP will have an uphill fight to let folks know what is fair truly trade and that Fair Trade USA is scamming the system.
While SPP is on the “push” side of the equal sign, we need a vastly increased number of vendors and fair trade organizations on the “pull” side. The PULL side will furnish the funds to enable the PUSH side to gain more market share and put more products on the retail side.
Where do I go to join the PULL side and have some input (not just money) on that part of the movement? I’m in Kentucky.
Jim Miller
jimmiller5417@gmail.com
Jim, are you part of a local fair trade or social justice organization? That could be a place to introduce others to SPP and then decide which “PULL”ers in your area that you might be able to influence.
Jim,
Thank you for your support and the good Q.
Just speaking for myself I think that people can:
▪ If they’re in certain decision-making positions (eg coffee buyer for a business) they can chose SPP-labeled products, & in general support those companies who are using the SPP system. (I believe right now there are only 3 such businesses in the States: Equal Exchange, Dean’s Beans & Just Coffee)
▪ As a shopper ask stores and cafes to carry SPP-labeled products
▪ If they do advocacy or public education on Fair Trade in any capacity they should educate themselves on SPP and include SPP information in their outreach work.
▪ They can be their own micro-media outlet, for ex, pass along SPP info, or this blog post, via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn & Reddit groups, etc.
▪ Because the internet is full of items and discussions about Fair Trade one has many opportunities via the comment sections, or Letters to the Editor, to introduce, and advocate for, the new SPP program.
~ Rodney North, Equal Exchange
This is really inspiring. I will do my bit to spread the word.
Good Foods Co-op in Lexington, KY is probably one of the best bets in the States for finding SPP items or asking buyers there to carry SPP items.
We are revising our Club flyer and would like to use either the “Small Farmer, Big Change” or SPP logo. How might I download them? Dean Shupe (account SHUP001),
Your article is an excellent explanation, thanks. I suggest also highlighting the SPP logo itself, so we can all know what to look for. I see a tiny square on the illustrated package of Mexican coffee, and I presume that’s it, but I recommend making it big and obvious.
Joanne Tuller
Thanks Joanne; that was a great suggestion! I’ve added a copy of a painting done by friends in Canada (Santropol Roasters). Hope that makes the SPP symbol stand out a bit more!
Thank you for keeping this issue in front of us. Many people do not know what has been happening with the MNCs and plantations vs. co-ops. It’s not about profit, it’s about justice in markets.