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Fair Trade |
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Agriculture is big business. But for the majority of farmers – especially small-scale, family farmers – the benefits are small. In developing countries, most farmers work modest plots of land, isolated from markets. The path from their farm to your table is long, with many middlemen along the way. That means little of the money you spend on food actually reaches the people growing it.
At Equal Exchange, we’ve created a different path to the market – one that brings farmers closer to you, and delivers more of your dollars to their communities. We do this by partnering with small-scale farmer co-ops that are democratically organized, which means they make decisions on their terms.
Through this model, we believe food can become a delicious and powerful tool for creating Big Change for small farmers, their families and communities.
Fair Trade is a way of doing business that ultimately aims to keep small farmers an active part of the world marketplace, and aims to empower consumers to make purchases that support their values.
Fair Trade is a set of business practices voluntarily adopted by the producers and buyers of agricultural commodities and hand-made crafts that are designed to advance many economic, social and environmental goals, including:
- Raising and stabilizing the incomes of small-scale farmers, farm workers, and artisans
- More equitably distributing the economic gains, opportunities and risks associated with the production and sale of these goods
- Increasing the organizational and commercial capacities of producer groups
- Supporting democratically owned and controlled producer organizations
- Promoting labor rights and the right of workers to organize
- Promoting safe and sustainable farming methods and working conditions
- Connecting consumers and producers
- Increasing consumer awareness and engagement with issues affecting producers
The Fair Trade practices that advance these goals typically, but not always, include:
- Direct trade relationships and long term contracts between importers and producer groups
- Sourcing from small-farmer or artisan co-operatives
- Higher than conventional market prices, either through above-market premiums and/or price floors
- The provision of affordable credit
- Adherence to the policies of the International Labor Organization, especially those concerning child and forced labor and the right to collective bargaining
- The prohibition of the use of the more dangerous pesticides and herbicides
- Substantial price premiums for the production of certified organic crops
- External monitoring, auditing, and certification of these practices by independent third-parties
Domestic Fair Trade
As our food system has become ever more globalized and its control more concentrated among a shrinking list of large corporations, family farmers in North America face problems that are similar in many ways to our farmer partners in the developing world. Farmers and farm workers around the globe are caught between declining prices for their products, the consolidation of markets and distribution, and tightening control over inputs such as seed.
As a result, the people who grow our food receive an ever-shrinking share of the money consumers spend on their food. Between 1935 and 1997, the total number of farms in the U.S. fell from 6.5 million to just 2.05 million. By 2003, there were just 1.9 million working farmers in the U.S. Meanwhile, over 50% of the revenue generated globally by food retailing is accounted for by just 10 corporations.
History of Fair Trade
 Fair Trade started with individual companies called Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs), who made a commitment to work directly with indigenous peoples and to market their products directly to consumers. By cutting out middlemen, ATOs have been able to pay farmers substantially more while offering a competitive product.
Later, organizations like the World Fair Trade Organization were formed to communicate ideas about Fair Trade. With the introduction of Fair Trade certification organizations like TransFair USA, products from around the world started to be certified as fairly traded. In an endeavor to place a world standard on what is fair, these labeling organizations came together and formed the Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO).
How Fair Trade Benefits Small Farmers
Fair Trade is not a charity or handout; it is simply a process of giving a fair exchange.
Equal Exchange provides high-quality foods at a fair price to you. By cutting out the middlemen, Equal Exchange pays the farmers more and gives you a better value.
Help Support Fair Trade
The easiest way to support Fair Trade is to purchase fairly traded products. Your actions as a consumer support or discourage actions by businesses. By making the choice to buy fairly traded products, you help provide health care, education and technical trainings for farmers, workers, and artisans around the world. By supporting Equal Exchange, you join a movement to reclaim the food system – to make it better for farmers, consumers and the earth.
Look for products produced by Equal Exchange and join millions of other socially-conscious consumers across the United States in becoming a "fair trader."
- Ask for Equal Exchange products at your local supermarket, food co-op or café.
- Serve Equal Exchange coffee, tea or hot cocoa at your place of worship through our Interfaith Program.
- Raise money for your school or organization with the Equal Exchange fundraising program.
- Encourage your town to become a Fair Trade Town! A Fair Trade Town is a town, city, village, county, zone, island or neighborhood that has made a commitment to supporting Fair Trade. Any area can work toward Fair Trade status. In 2007, Media, Pennsylvania anointed itself the first "Fair Trade town" in the United States. There are over 300 Fair Trade towns in Europe.
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Our Co-op 
