Barista Magazine

APR-MAY 2013

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he international Fairtrade system marks its 25th anniversary this year. The organization built on the idea of empowering farmers and workers, consumers and businesses to change the terms of trade has grown to have a global reach that includes more than 1,000 Fairtrade-certified producer organizations in 66 producing countries, representing more than 1.24 million farmers and workers. Today, the Fairtrade mark can be found on a broad swath of products, from bananas, cocoa, and cotton, to wine, spices, and sports balls. But it all began in 1988 with a Dutch initiative based on a single product: coffee. The original concept hung on Max Havelaar, a sort of a consumer counterpart to Juan Valdez: A fictional character who was upset over the terrible working conditions of the people in the Dutch East Indies who grew coffee and demanded better treatment for them. The so-called 'book that killed colonialisim' sparked a namesake movement. The result was Max Havelaar brand coffee hitting the supermarket shelves, with beans boasting a more ethical standard for the coffee farmers who produced it. Max Havelaar worked so well that it spread and was soon adopted in a number of other countries. It grew as a series of independent movements taking up the cause of fairness in coffee trading, a true grassroots effort, and more and more people in different countries launched their own initiatives based on the Max Havelaar model. As the number of countries participating in the movement proliferated, however, so did the names that went along with it. Max Havelaar as a brand name didn't translate everywhere, but the concept and the power of the idea did. So while some places stuck with Max Havelaar, in other countries like Germany, Italy, Canada, and the United States, it was known as Transfair; in the United Kingdom and Ireland, it was called the Fairtrade Mark. In 1997, a number of the disparate initiatives were united under a single banner and established the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), whose headquarters are in Bonn, Germany (name changed to Fairtrade International in 2010). "Fairtrade International grew from the ground up. It's its absolute strength," says Harriet Lamb, CEO of Fairtrade International. "It's an international movement where we work across the world [in 66 countries]. That's a pretty powerful movement." The idea that animated all this work was a relatively simple one: Too many people in the world lived in poverty, and farmers and consumers working together could do something about it. That something was to turn the terms of trade by setting minimum prices, encouraging longterm relationships, and stipulating a development premium so farmers wouldn't be left to the whims of a volatile market. In turn, a set minimum price would allow the farmers to plan, budget, and invest in their futures. Consumers could support these efforts by buying products marked with the Fairtrade label. But that simple model is also a huge ask in a competitive marketplace. Not only were there other invested interests in all of the markets Fairtrade operated in, but many of them stood to lose revenue under a new model that set prices for farmers that would stand independent from the fluctuations of the market. There was also the simple fact that the Fairtrade equation also depended on consumers' willingness to have an interest in where their coffee came from. Skeptics doubted that the market would support Fairtrade products, but consumers—especially in countries like England—quickly bought in. And though economic times have been tough lately across the board, consumers have kept up their end of the bargain. "What's very, very T heartening is to see how sales of Fairtrade have continued to rise despite the economy," says Lamb. "I kind of think the doubters thought Fairtrade would never survive the recession." But she says that global sales of Fairtrade-certified products grew by more than 10 percent in 2011. "The public is very decent, and their core value is to do right by the famers and producers," say Lamb. The Charter of Fair Trade Principles (established by the WFTO) states, "Fair Trade is, fundamentally, a response to the failure of conventional trade to deliver sustainable livelihoods and development opportunities to people in the poorest countries of the world." The international Fairtrade (FLO) model to remedy this situation in coffee, for example, has four primary components on the producer end. For starters, it requires the farmer a set minimum price for coffee (right now it's $1.40 per pound. for washed Arabica) or the going marketprice if higher. The price is reviewed every few years (the last time was in 2011). On top of the Fairtrade price, however, there is also a Fairtrade premium. The premium was recently doubled from 10 cents per pound to 20 cents per pound, with the stipulation that 5 cents of that premium was set aside specifically for productivity and quality investment. The premium is paid to the farmers' organization (most often a co-op), and the organization decides how to spend it via a democratic vote. Lee Byers, senior advisor on coffee and tea at Fairtrade International, stresses the importance of the ground-level decisions that go into spending the premium. "They are self-generated ideas [determined by the co-op or organization]." Fairtrade International does not tell them what to do. Byers says only "that they have to demonstrate they have a plan for [improving] productivity and quality. Things such as productivity and quality are very difficult to implement from the top down. [The farmers] really have to have ownership themselves." As an example of the premium in action he says, "Last week I was in Uganda and visited with a Fairtrade co-op [which has] used their premiums to create a farm store, and next door they have a microcredit facility, so their farmers can get credit to buy some materials." The materials and education provided at the co-op are then used to improve crop quality and yields. The type of organization the farmers belong to is the third part of the international Fairtrade model. It has to be an open, transparent, and democratic body. "Certification is done at the organization level. By small farmers coming together to form an organization, they can get the benefits of scale of certification at the organizational level," says Byers. "The organization has to provide a list of members, and those members have to vote and be represented. And [it] has to be legally constituted. Fairtrade International doesn't dictate what the organization form should be; although we are historically associated with cooperatives, that's not a prerequisite to be a member." "In coffee, FLO is solely focused on small farmers," says Byers, "so we don't certify estates. We have made a commitment to our producers on that." The fourth piece of the international Fairtrade system depends on a partnership with the producers, which extends throughout the organization's leadership. Four seats on the board are reserved for producers, and producers have 50 percent of the vote in the General Assembley. "FLO is half-owned by producers. We believe that's really living our values," says Lamb. "They are in the driver's seat in making our decisions." "Our system is co-owned by producers," says Enrique Hennings, Interim Operations Manager for Fairtrade International USA (FLO's new Associate Member body in the United States). "The producers are very well represented in the system to make sure we hear [their] voices." www.baristamagazine.com 67

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