Loving our neighbours as ourselves: why we should buy Fair trade

 IN  the late 1990s, conditions for the banana farmers of Juliana and Jaramillo, two villages in the Dominican Republic, were grim. Farmers were not making enough to meet their needs. The community’s water system had fallen into disrepair; buildings were crumbling; there was little sanitation; and parents could not always provide food for their children.

Then in 2000, some of the farmers entered the Fairtrade market. Within two years, thanks to the higher prices and social premium received by 70 banana farmers in the Juliana-Jaramillo Fairtrade cooperative, the villages had a functioning water system, a community canteen, sanitation units, and the beginnings of a community clinic.(1)

We live in a global economy which all too often reflects Proverbs 13:23, ‘The fields of the poor may produce abundant food, but injustice sweeps it away.’ Human rights groups document how workers on banana plantations in Central America are paid minimal wages, blacklisted if they try to join unions, and compelled to use dangerous pesticides without protection. Tariff barriers force developing countries to rely on primary commodities, for which farmers receive scant compensation. EU and US subsidies devastate developing-country producers of sugar and cotton. Closer to home, the relentless market pressure on primary producers also affects farmers in the UK.

In the midst of such injustices, Fair trade is creating scenarios of hope like Juliana-Jaramillo  throughout the developing world. Currently more than 4.5 million producers and their families receive its benefits. Not all gains are as dramatic as those of the Dominican farmers. They were able to sell their entire crop on the Fairtrade market, which few can, as the demand for Fairtrade products isn’t yet sufficient. But stories abound:  the UCIRI coffee cooperative in southern Mexico has started an agricultural school and a jam factory to provide local employment; the Igara Growers Tea Factory in Uganda has funded a new maternity clinic so  that women in labour no longer have to be carried up to 60km to receive medical attention; the women of CIAP in Lima can educate their children.

‘the labourer is worthy of his hire’

Fair trade works by ensuring producers like Juliana-Jaramillo, UCIRI and others ‘a fair and just reward in return for labour,’ enabling them to ‘build a sustainable future on [their] own abilities.’(2) In return for quality produce, traders whose products have the Fairtrade Mark agree to pay producers a price that covers the cost of production and living – a $1.26 a pound for coffee last year, for example, versus a market price of 48 cents – plus a premium to the community for development. They also agree to offer partial advance payments upon request and to use long-term contracts that allow producers to plan ahead.

The guidelines established for the Fairtrade Mark also require justice and good stewardship of the producers, be they small farmers’ organisations or employers on plantations and in factories. To fulfil the basic requirements, employers guarantee, for example, decent wages, decent housing (when applicable) and the right to join trade unions. They undertake to comply with minimum health and safety as well as environmental standards, and not to use child or forced labour. ‘Process requirements’ encourage constant improvement in working conditions, product quality and environmental stewardship.

‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’

In ‘The Bible and Trade,’ Dewi Hughes writes: ‘What we do when we shop is engage in trade. . . It is impossible to buy anything without impacting the lives of other people. Since Jesus asks us as Christians to love our neighbour as ourselves, and our neighbour is any other human being with whom we come into contact, the demand to love must prevail when we shop.’  Buying fairly traded products is one way of showing that love. It may cost a few pence more – though with the advent of Co-op’s own-brand Fairtrade coffee and other new products, that’s not necessarily the case! – but it may also make the difference between a decent life and destitution.

For this reason, many churches actively use and promote Fairtrade products. The article on page 10  highlights some particularly innovative projects. And now, in an exciting move, three deanery synods – Mursley, Oxford and Reading – have proposed that Oxford become a Fairtrade Diocese! The model for such a move is Chester, which became the first Fairtrade diocese – with synod meetings, diocesan buildings and more than 60% of their parishes using Fairtrade products -- in March 2003. Many denominational bodies have followed suit – in our area both the Wessex Synod of the URC and the Oxford and Leicester Methodist District are working to the same end. A motion to initiate the process is planned for the Diocesan March Synod. Fair Trade doesn’t promise to be the solution to all the world’s problems. It is however a very pragmatic response to the dilemma of how we love our neighbour in today’s complex world.

(1) Fairtrade Foundation www.fairtrade.org.uk
(2) International Fairtrade Association

Maranda St John Nicolle is diocesan world development adviser and coordinator of Christian Concern for One World

Photo (Julia Powell, The Fairtrade foundation). Worker carrying bananas the Dominican Republic