Living Green through Fair Trade

...that's the title of three talks I will be giving this weekend at Kirabo Fair Trade's Anniversary Festival in E. Lansing, Michigan. Using stories from my visits to Madagascar and Nicaragua, I will share reflections on the Fair Trade principle of promoting environmental sustainability. The owner of Kirabo, Gail, will also showcase some products that come from recycled materials.

Talks will be at 7:00 p.m. on Friday (well in advance of the Presidential debate--let's hope McCain shows!) and then on Saturday I'll be speaking 11:30 and 3:00 a.m. In between they'll be fun activities, including coffee tasting from Jody and Chris, the good people of Higher Grounds Trading Company, a Michigan-based fully committed Fair Trade company. Come get samples at either 9:00 a.m. or 10:30.
Wearing my CRS hat, I will also be speaking on sustainability and Catholic Social Teaching on Sunday morning at St. John's on the MSU campus, beginning around 11:00 a.m. I'd love to Michigan folks at any of these events, and if you aren't in that neighborhood leave a comment explaining how you've gone green through Fair Trade!

Chapter 1 Update: Why Fair Trade Isn't Just for Coffee Farmers Anymore

The basic premise of my book is that Fair Trade is a strategy for confronting poverty—both material and spiritual. The failure to meet basic material needs of people in the Majority World (a term coined by Albert Tucker which now replaces for me the term “global south”) is the most glaring concern, while in the Minority World people and communities suffer from a lack of meaning and fulfillment due, in part, to the negative effects of over-consumption. I make the case that Fair Trade addresses a range of concerns: it help improves the lives and communities of both producers and consumers and does so in ways that are sustainable for the planet. But just as Abraham Maslow demonstrates in his hierarchy of human needs, the concerns of the materially poor are the most urgent, and that means that Fair Trade is more than just about getting a great cup of justice java.

One way to track progress on efforts to alleviate economic poverty is to consider whether or not the world is achieving its Millennium Development Goals. In 2008, the UN Development Program released a report trying to answer the question: Are we on track to meet the MDGs by 2015? Here are excerpts from the report’s website:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger
: The goal of cutting in half the proportion of people in the developing world living on less than $1 a day by 2015 remains within reach. However, this achievement will be due largely to extraordinary economic success in most of Asia. In contrast, previous estimates suggest that little progress was made in reducing extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education:
 The number of children of primary school age who were out of school fell from 103 million in 1999 to 73 million in 2006, despite an overall increase in the number of children in this age group.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality & empower women
: As part of its success in raising the total primary enrollment rate, Southern Asia has made the most progress in promoting equality since 2000. Sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia and Northern Africa have also made strides in reducing gender disparity. At the same time, Oceania has taken a step back with a slight deterioration in gender parity in primary school enrollment. Oceania, sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia have the largest gender gaps in primary enrolment. In Western and Central Africa, where high repetition and low retention rates are common, girls in particular fail to enroll in and stay in school.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality:
 In 2006, for the first time since mortality data have been gathered, annual deaths among children under five dipped below 10 million. Success!

Goal 5: Improve maternal health:
 In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman’s risk of dying from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth over the course of her lifetime is 1 in 22, compared to 1 in 7,300 in the developed regions.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases
: Every day, nearly 7,500 people become infected with HIV and 5,500 die from AIDS, mostly due to a lack of HIV prevention and treatment services.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability:
 Globally, carbon dioxide emissions increased by 30 per cent from 1990 to 2005, with annual growth from 2000 to 2005 greater than in the preceding decade. Per capita emissions remain the highest in the developed regions, about 12 metric tons of CO2 per person per year, compared with about 3 metric tons in developing regions and 0.8 metric tons in sub-Saharan Africa.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
: Adjusting for changes in prices and exchange rates, aid disbursements from governments fell by 8.4 per cent in 2007 compared to 2006.

The final goal speaks of global partnership in the context of economically poor countries receiving development aid from economically richer countries. But for Fair Traders, partnership in terms of shared vision and responsibility is the core of their mission. Many factors such as weather, armed conflict, disease and food shortages—whether in times of crisis as the world is currently experience or through failures of distribution—contribute to suffering around the globe. Fair Trade can’t confront them all but, as the book describes, it seeks to adhere to core principles focused on treating people with respect, investing in communities, protecting the planet, and infusing consumption with awareness of its impacts.

The official Fair Trade Definition offered in Chapter One may soon be supplemented by a new charter of principles written by two preeminent Fair Trade umbrella organizations: IFAT and FLO. As of May 2008 the introduction of the draft 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; this is evidenced by the two billion of our fellow citizens who, despite working extremely hard, survive on less than $2 per day. Poverty and hardship limit people’s choices while market forces tend to further marginalise and exclude them. This makes them vulnerable to exploitation, whether as farmers and artisans in family-based production units (hereafter “producers”) or as hired workers (hereafter “workers”) within larger businesses.”

IFAT and FLO have requested feedback on their full draft charter and I, thanks to my work with Catholic Relief Services, will be attending the IFAT Global Conference in May 2009 for the latest updates. By commenting below, you can share your reactions to the charter, as well as to progress on the MDGs, now. I will carry your perspectives forward as best I can.

Part of the reason I am providing chapter updates via this blog is that I hope readers of the original Fair Trade: A Beginner’s Guide and of the chapter updates will add wisdom and experience that the Fair Trade movement needs to become closer to achieving a shared reality of economic justice. To participate, please comment!

Fair Trade Struggles in Nicaragua

I’m just back from my third trip to Nicaragua. The first was about eight years ago, soon after I had encountered Fair Trade in Chiapas. I didn’t stay long because, thanks to my poor sense of direction and Managua’s lack of street signs, I stumbled—quite literally—onto a dog who bit me. With the help of the U.S. Embassy, I was on a plane to the States to get rabies treatment after having only spent a day in what is one of Central America’s most fascinating countries. Luckily all went well—no rabies for the dog or for me, so neither of us had to be put down. And, after my detour, I was fully vaccinated for my next dog run-in on the streets of Mexico. I am not making this up…I have been bitten twice on my Latin America travels. And people wonder why I have cats in my Washington, DC apartment!

My last two visits to Nicaragua have been much more enjoyable and educational. My day-job with CRS Fair Trade has meant that I’ve gotten to know the work of some farmers and agro-enterprise specialists in the Matagalpa region who are working to improve the quality and market access of Fair Trade and organic coffees. This visit involved two days of meetings with folks from four CRS countries to plan a new coffee initiative in Latin America that focuses on the emerging realities and changes in the marketplace—including consumer desires to make socially responsible choices in the context of big-box stores and mega-supermarkets.

While coffee was the focus of this trip, I had a couple of opportunities to visit with women who are trying to use the principles of the Fair Trade movement to shape their businesses and confront poverty in the cities. One was Eileen Moore, a development professional and social entrepreneur who is associated with a local NGO called Dos Generaciones and its supporter Trócaire. A two year-old report about the community where Eileen and her colleagues work is, unfortunately, still very relevant as it describes the heart-breaking situation of children trying to survive in the dumps of Managua. Eileen is marketing the products of parents who are being trained to sew, and she is developing a business plan, thanks to the support of groups such as Agora partnerships, to help gain business in the local tourist and expatriate markets and abroad. After meeting with Eileen, I come away with an almost overwhelming sense of how hard it is for disadvantaged groups, even those with a network of supporters, to make it in the modern marketplace.

This was also a message I took away after meeting with Nueva Vida, a clothing cooperative, located near Managua. Nueva Vida, which was formed by the women of a community devastated by Hurricane Mitch, had also received an array of public and private support, for many years being a featured vendor of Maggie’s Organics and touted as a “sweat-shop free” alternative. Recently organizational, political, and interpersonal challenges have slowed the progress of the group and new leadership is trying to regain a foot-hold in an intensively competitive apparel market. While I was taken with the determination of women such as my hostess Maria Elena to improve their customer service efforts and professionalize their operations, I couldn’t help but worry about the obstacles they have to overcome as they seek to be viable in an industry characterized by the “just-in-time” demands of consumers who want to buy clothes cheaply and quickly.

This is one of the tug-of-war battles in the Fair Trade movement. We say we are about offering a viable “alternative” way of doing business. But the realities of that business—building the skills and capacities of often under-educated vulnerable groups living in economies suffering from lack of infrastructure—come up against the “realities” of the traditional marketplace. Consumers expect rapid service, an array of color and design options. An inspiring story like that of Nueva Vida might encourage a church group or non-profit to buy their t-shirts once, but if the order is delayed or the cost of organic cotton too high—then tough choices are sometimes made in the future. Those truly committed to Fair Trade know that it has many development related functions: it helps disadvantaged groups build their capacity to meet the expectations of consumers, but that trajectory can be slow and painful. Meanwhile, clients can be lost or become disenchanted. It takes a special kind of commitment to not only pay a higher price but also wait a little longer for a product to arrive.

Of course, for me the commitment is stoked by visits to places like Nicaragua, where I witness the street children begging at each traffic stop, where I see the desperation in the eyes of women like Maria Elena, and where I am encouraged by the persistence of businesswomen like Eileen who creatively design new products—such as an adorable cloth teapot set for children--to appeal to sophisticated shoppers. If you can’t meet personally with those involved in making trade fairer, making it a tool of opportunity and advancement, please check out the links of this posting to learn more details directly from those living the realities. Please give the products and the women behind them a chance. And then comment on this blog about what your experience is in dealing with organizations that might lack capacity, but not determination.

thanks to catholic relief services for the photo from my 2008 trip