As all Fairtrade supporters know, Fairtrade Fortnight is here. Fairtrade Fortnight is the Fairtrade Foundation’s annual promotional campaign to encourage people to buy more products bearing the FAIRTRADE mark. This year it takes place from 25th February to 9th March 2008.
This year’s theme is Change Today, Choose Fairtrade. Fairtrade towns across the UK will have a visit from the ‘Choose Fairtrade Bus’ throughout the fortnight, beginning on London’s South Bank. People that board the campaign bus will be able to learn more from the on-board cinema and though interactive activities.
As it’s my first year as an official fairtrader, I’ve been really excited about FTF14. It’s been really interesting to see what’s been taking place throughout. There’s been two particularly interesting pieces in the news:-
Tate & Lyle have announced that by the end of 2009 all of their range will be Fairtrade. This is fantastic news and I’ll write about it in another entry.
The Adam Smith Institute chose to release their report at the start of FTF14. You can read it at www.adamsmith.org. The report makes many claims, to which The Fairtrade Foundation has provided a response to on their website.
It’s fairly obvious that the report was released to coincide with Fairtrade Fortnight to gain maximum exposure and they appear to have succeeded.
The report makes many claims against Fairtrade. I won’t go into all my thoughts on it and I don’t/won’t claim to be an expert on all matters Fairtrade, but I would just say the following. The Fairtrade Foundation was set up by CAFOD, Oxfam, Traidcraft, Christian Aid, and the World Development Movement and were joined by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes. All of these charities are still involved with Fairtrade and fighting poverty and have been joined along the way by many others. If the assertion that Fairtrade harms producers in developing countries rather than helping them, then surely they wouldn’t be involved with it?
The report also states there are other ethical alternatives to Fairtrade. The problem with this is that many companies can claim to offer ethical alternatives but what do they measure it against? People are more than willing to make their own choices as consumers but there can often be confusion over various ethical labels. How are they supposed to know which is the most trustworthy? Recognition of the Fairtrade label is now higher than ever and sales have been increasing since 2002 by over 40% each year (see the Fairtrade Foundation’s website).
For me, I think there will always be people that criticise it, but Fairtrade is about more than just paying a fair price. It’s about allowing farmers and craftspeople access to markets that they would otherwise be excluded from. It allows them to set up long term contracts and put processes in place for long term development that they would otherwise be unable to do. Not only that but it allows them to put more back into their communities and there are many case studies that show and support this.
We’re delighted to announce that we are listed in 
