Fair Trade or Free Trade?
Posted by in Periwinkle Takes Action | Social Justice | The World and You - (2 Comments)Fair Trade is much more effective than Free Trade in eliminating poverty. According to GlobalExchange.com ”Free trade isn’t fair for farmers and artisans, their families, communities, or the environment. Fair Trade is. For example, a drastic fall in world coffee prices has pushed millions of coffee farmers and workers into malnutrition and starvation; and losing their jobs and even their farms. Some have even turned to drug cultivation to survive. Most cocoa farmers are so poor they have been using child labor, sometimes even child slaves. Most farmers get only about half of the world price because they are forced to sell their next crop in advance to exploitative middlemen who pay far below the value. Some farmers have also cut down the rainforest to sell the trees for extra money, or to make room for more profitable crops. Artisans face poverty and the loss of culture as they find the need to work in sweatshops. Fair Trade ensures better lives by helping workers afford health care, to keep their kids in school, and by supporting sustainable production. Fair Trade producers also set aside funds for community projects like schools and clinics; and for training in quality improvement and sustainable production.”
Transparency is necessary in the trading system to remove corruption by governments, private corporations, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Workers need the protection offered by Fair Trade regulations and agreements. The importance of a fair trade policy is stated by Bread For All www.bfa-ppp.ch “Global trade must not undermine development in poor countries; instead human rights must be respected and poverty must consistently be reduced.”
Fair trade wages are on average 20% higher than free trade wages. Free trade workers often work for wages below the legal minimum and under dangerous working conditions. With fair trade wages, co-op communities can provide interest free microloans for empowering women to create their own small businesses to help provide for their families, loans for emergencies, water pumps for clean water, improved sanitation, and fair wages to improve lives. Families can afford school fees so that their children can receive education. Education is vital to ending the cycle of poverty. Workers don’t have to travel to big cities for work…far away from their families in order to provide for them. In this way, families can stay together, reducing living costs, improving the family structure, and reducing the likelihood of getting and transmitting AIDS/HIV.
The Allies at the WSF (World Social Forum) stated “The most important point of convergence was on the need to make trade fair. Fair trade works towards human development and social responsibility. To have a long lasting relationship between the consumer and the producer, a relation of trust should be developed. There is also the need to find new ways to reach the concept of fair trade to the common people. In the context of the crisis arising from the WTO-brokered trade pacts, there must be special focus on promoting policies that support and encourage fair trade. This would not only help fair trade organizations, but also the cause of local development, food sovereignty, diversification of production, etc.”
Fair trade wages are based on improving the standard of living for workers, farmers and artisans. To calculate if an artisan is being paid fairly visit www.fairtradecalculator.com Look for Fair Trade Certified and Fair Trade Federation labels.