|
Trip Report: A Georgia Dream |
|
By Sarah Belfort, Domestic Fair Trade Product Coordinator
In early July I visited Albany, Ga., for the first time. For the past two years, Equal Exchange has purchased pecans from Southern Alternatives Agricultural Cooperative (SAAC), a co-op run by black women in rural Georgia, near Albany. We have been able to establish a partnership with them through the support of the Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative and the Southwest Georgia office of the Federation of Southern Co-operatives/Land Assistance Fund, two groups with roots in the civil rights movement. The purpose of my visit was to spend some time getting to know each of these partners better, and to finalize a purchase contract with SAAC for the upcoming pecan harvest.
Both objectives were met, and Equal Exchange was able to prepay half of the finalized contract, providing SAAC with operating capital for the coming months. In addition, the visit increased my awareness that although overt segregation is a thing of the past, the struggle for equality remains very much alive today. Black farmers continue to lose their land at a higher rate than white farmers, and still experience discrimination in accessing both loans and markets for their crops.
The women I met from our partner organizations took time to share their stories with me. They were born into a segregated society, witnessed their parents' lack of control over their lives, and dreamed of something better for themselves and their children. Carrie Thomas, one of the leaders of Southern Alternatives, told of participating in a small, peaceful march with a group seeking equal treatment for everyone in the justice system, and being arrested at her own town line and jailed. This happened in 1999. 
Since then, despite continued police harassment, she and others have become even more active in their community, participating in the court, prison and jail watch program, establishing an after-school center that is a safe space for children, and holding voter registration drives. Their work with the pecan processing plant is especially important to them because it creates jobs. Currently, Equal Exchange is their largest buyer. Last year our order volume allowed Southern Alternatives to operate the plant for about three months, employing a dozen people during that time. Many of the employees are single women with children. Having even temporary employment with a good wage gives them money during the holiday season to be able to buy what they choose for their children, rather than relying on secondhand gifts. "They are so proud," Carrie told me.
We think of Fair Trade as creating market access for marginalized producers, paying a fair price, and establishing direct, long-term relationships. And it is all of those things. But the most profound change it can make is impossible to measure in dollars or years. The essence of Fair Trade is that sense of pride among the workers and members of Southern Alternatives – the difference Fair Trade makes in a community's sense of its own worth.
Martin Luther King, Jr., once said: "I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream — a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity." Fair Trade, at its best, shares this dream.
To learn more:
-"The Rain Don't Fall to the Ground Down Here: The Status of Human Rights for Southern Rural Black Women" by the Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative
-USDA Research Report: "Black Farmers in America, 1865-2000: The Pursuit of Independent Farming and the Role of Cooperatives"
-SAAC website
-To order fairly traded pecans from Equal Exchange, visit our online retail store.
|
Our Co-op 
