A recent article in the Times On Line, “Tea workers still waiting to reap Fairtrade benefits” by Parminder Bahra reveals the contradictions the fair trade system has brought upon itself by embracing large scale plantations into a structure originally created to benefit small scale farmers in the developing world. In the Times article, tea workers [...]
Posts Tagged ‘plantations’
Is Fair Trade Tea from Plantations an Oxymoron? Some tea estate workers think so.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Fair Trade, plantations, tea on January 6, 2009 | 13 Comments »
Tea with F.W. DeKlerk
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Heiveld, plantations, rooibos, South Africa, tea, Wupperthal on August 12, 2008 | 4 Comments »
As the food we eat becomes more and more political, we begin to hear the story it tells. In too many cases, it is a story of environmental destruction and human despair. The story of rooibos tea is no exception. It begins in the most infamous system of racial segregation in our planet’s history. The [...]
Fair Trade as a Tool for Transformation: Can plantations play that role?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bananas, Cargill, Chiquita, Fair Trade, plantations, small farmer co-operatives, tea on July 28, 2008 | 12 Comments »
The following post is offered by Nicholas Reid, Sales Representative of the Natural Foods Department at Equal Exchange. His original comments were published in response to a post on GreenLAGirl’s blog about the Business Week article, “Is Fair Trade Becoming ‘Fair Trade Lite’?”. At Equal Exchange we feel strongly that small-scale sustainable farming is the [...]
Fair Trade: Are we here to “help” poor people or radically change injust systems that keep people poor?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged agrarian reform, Fair Trade, Fair Trade Lite, food system, George Monbiot, Green Revolution, plantations, small farmers on July 23, 2008 | 3 Comments »
In her blog, GreenLaGirl, Siel wrote about the issues presented in the Business Week article, “Is Fair Trade Becoming ‘Fair Trade Lite’?” and asked those of us at Equal Exchange why we were so opposed to the idea that plantations and multi-nationals should be operating within the Fair Trade system. Siel wondered if EE is [...]

