Essay

Fair trade makes gains

By Alison Gray

Fair trade has been going longer than you think. In the U.K. in the 1950s, the anti-poverty group OXFAM led the way, selling crafts made by Chinese refugees. In the U.S., at around the same time, a woman called Edna Ruth Byler started buying crafts from impoverished women in Puerto Rico to sell out of her car boot. Then, it was called alternative trade and it operated from small charity shops and through churches. The growth in this trade led to the setting up of a governing, networking body, the World Fair Trade Organization (IFAT) in 1989, which in 2004 set up its own fair trade mark and certification system. These fair trade companies were set up by socially concerned individuals and groups including organizations from producer countries. They exist in order to offer a fair alternative to mainstream shopping. Traditionally, they have concentrated on products such as clothes and crafts, but have also successfully sold food products. IFAT members in the U.K. include Traidcraft and in Japan, Peopletree.

By the mid '80s, a rumble of transformation was appearing in two forms within the alternative trade groups. Alternative trade supported by socially conscious individuals and by church groups had been growing, but it was still only available in the small shops dedicated to fair trade practices. Many wanted to move fair trade into the high streets and supermarkets, to settle it as a side-by- side alternative to Nescafe, Dole and Liptons. And so another kind of fair trade mark was born. Up until now, the company, not the product, was fair trade certified. In 1988, a Dutch fair trade organization launched "Max Havelaar," the first fair trade labeled product. The U.S., the U.K., Japan and others followed.

The second change was in attitude. Fair trade groups, while still concerned with helping the poor, wanted to know why, although they worked and sold their goods, the poor remained poor. They started to criticize trade rules and the imperial attitudes of "minority" world countries. It started to get political. Fair trade became part of a movement that criticized the "foul trade" of normal trading practices. Calling on the World Trade Organization and on individual governments, it became part of a movement of groups such as Jubilee 2000 and the Make Poverty History campaign, which want to change all trade rules to fair trade rules.

Though still counter-cultural, fair trade's progress into the shopping habits of the North American and European consumer has, in 2008, taken it far from its small alternative beginnings. With two international fair trade certification bodies, and an average yearly sales growth of 40 percent, fair trade is no longer alternative. Its aim now, is to become the norm.

Shukan ST: Dec. 12, 2008

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