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During our 20th Anniversary celebration, we interviewed
producer partner leaders on their views about Fair Trade.
Here are excerpts from some of those interviews.
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Blanca Rosa Molina
President
CECOCAFEN, Nicaragua
I can give an example of how Fair Trade and Equal Exchange have caused positive change in our lives. The most important example is the land— the conservation of land. This has allowed us to have it and work it. For the small producer, it is the most important thing. The land is the means of life, our form of life. Fair Trade has prevented us from losing our land. Not only is it not lost, but we have improved it, protected the environment, and diversified the crops that we grow on it. Fair Trade has been very, very significant for us.
Fair Trade has been important for women in Nicaragua. It has allowed us to have an effect on politics and in our own organizations. It has allowed us to take power in an area that had been traditionally controlled by men. Coffee farming forms the principal economy of the country, but until recently women did not enter it. Now women form a significant portion of coffee producers: thirty six percent. We are found within the management structure, we are in the administration, and this is very important. Fair Trade allowed this to happen.
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Abel Fernandez
Sales and Operations Manager
CONACADO, Dominican Republic
Before Fair Trade our organization focused on the conventional market…With Fair Trade we have identified new businesses, but even more importantly we have found partners and friends…In 2004 after Hurricane Jeanne, the La Siembra Cooperative and Equal Exchange worked with other organizations to raise over $40,000 to be used to help the farmers whose land was damaged by the storm…If the cocoa farmers didn’t have this money they would have had to sell their labor to big plantations in order to live. These funds helped producers to stay on their land and to rehabilitate their farms in a relatively short time so that they could continue to do their work.
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Binod Mohan
Director
Tea Promoters, India
We have been in Fair Trade since 1989. In 1990 we formed the first model for a Fair Trade tea garden where the plantation workers who were displaced were involved in a managing committee to run the plantation. And the Fair Trade criteria for tea was formed based on the model that we created. Because we were successful there, we could get into other projects, and Equal Exchange met us 10 years ago. So it's our 10th anniversary with Equal Exchange.
We started packaging at origin for them. That was a new concept and it was good for everybody there because it created more jobs and more opportunities for workers. This was quite a revolutionary step at that time, because there were very few western companies that were willing to package in India; they probably didn't have the confidence. But we did a good job and we’re still packing in India for Equal Exchange.
The work of Tea Promoters, India and the vision we have has had a tremendous impact on the region. I think that in the coming years our work will change many of the existing structures. We're putting pressures on these structures to dismantle them. The workers will benefit more and more…You can't have one man controlling the lives of 5,000 people living on a plantation. Once the structure has been demolished and we can have the involvement of the workers and the management in the day-to-day running of the tea garden, this will be a very major step.
Fair Trade can be very effective for plantation workers if it can work in the direction of giving them more involvement, giving them more say in their destiny, and how to shape their own futures. Because they're the ones who live on the estates, and they really don’t have much control over their own affairs at the moment. That's the structure that should be changed; and that's where Fair Trade will mean a lot to them.
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Rocio Motato
Organizer
Grupo ASPROCAFE de Ingruma, Colombia
We deeply appreciate Equal Exchange. Our relationship with them is more than commercial, it is very human. Why? Because Equal Exchange has visited us, and they understand the producers' reality. They have linked us with different organizations like Lutheran World Relief that have helped to develop important projects.
In a study that we did through the Organic Coffee Program, we found that low crop productivity was caused by the lack of natural fertilizer due to a scarcity of materials. Many farms don’t have animals to provide the manure which is necessary to create more natural fertilizer. The Lutheran project provides animals for young people to raise specifically for this purpose.
This project is very important for us because we are in a zone of conflict. It motivates the youth to stay on the farms and not join one of the armed groups. It's also a project that's of vital importance for women, as it gives them independence so that they don't have to depend completely on their husbands. They can also manage their own resources and help meet the family's basic needs.
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Tadesse Meskela
General Manager
OCFCU, Ethiopia
Before Fair Trade people used to walk 15 or 30 kilometers to a nearby school. They had to travel a similar distance to get to a health center. Because of Fair Trade there is now a health center in their village, a school and a clean water supply station. But this is just a start. There are only four cooperatives that benefit from the school and the health center; and we have more than one hundred cooperatives.
There needs to be more Fair Trade. Even the price that is paid for Fair Trade now is just a start of the movement until trade becomes fair. Farmers have to get this price. It's a price that’s set by activists and supporters buying our products and competing with multi-nationals that are buying coffee at a cheaper price. So for Fair Trade to provide fair prices, producers want to have at least part of the profits from companies that are getting a lot of profit to get back to the co-ops. This in turn will help them to grow good quality products.
Fair trade is just asking a fair price for our product. The price of coffee has stayed low while the prices of other commodities have increased. What we want is to be paid a better price—a price that can help farmers to live better lives, a price which is above the cost of production, which can help a farmer to send his children to school. We don’t ask for charity; we ask for the right price for our product.
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Jaime Hernandez
Export Manager
CEPCO, Mexico
In order to express how Fair Trade has changed the lives of the producers, one must be objective and very honest. Historically, the lives of the small farmers, especially those who produce coffee, have been extremely marginalized—very poor. It is very difficult for a commercial system to change this reality in a short period of time. But the Fair Trade system has provided dignity for the producers. In other words, farmers can continue their work with the hope that their lives will improve. This is the possibility: that they can continue doing what they know how to do.
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Photo credit: Olaf Hammelburg
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