Final Essay

Amanda Alipio

Period 1 and 2

Fair Trade Essay

With today’s global food industries, there are many things that may concern the nation. We focus on our food quality, what it does to us on the outside and some of us, if wise, are concerned with what it does to us on the inside as well. When it comes to food, we all have our different standards which sway us to purchase our food from different sources. Some of us choose organic from a farmer’s market while others may go with industrialized, genetically modified produce from the grocery store. Whatever it may be, many of us don’t take the time to think about where the food was grown and the daily tasks and trading farmers did to get that food to you. The act in which a farmer sells his goods to a retailer without tax, a fixed amount, or other restrictions is called free trade. Fair trade is good because it helps farmers earn a fair price on their produce and it enforces environmental laws and labor rights by providing a relationship between the farmer and it’s retailer.

How was fair trade started you may ask, according to the equal exchange site “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.” With this, many other organizations started up such as TransFair organization. Later, these organizations came together and combined forces to form FairTrade Labeling Organization (FLO). FLO is responsible for knowing about an industry, and with input from manufacture, determines the lowest price that should be paid in order to give a fair share to farmers.

Fair trade is not to be confused with free trade. Free trade indicates a widespread exposed environment to information and goods between nations with few, to sometimes, no barriers to trade. Fair traders and free traders tend to argue over which is the better way to trade. On the fair trader’s side, it is said that free trade will not fix the entire trading market. In an article by Global Envision.org it states “Even if nations trade freely, smaller nations become increasingly reliant on richer states, whose interaction with smaller countries depletes natural resources in those countries, and slows their progress.” While fair traders make that argument, the opposing side, free traders, bring up the question of what “fair” in fair trade can even be counted as. According to the same article the free trader’s argue that a higher or lower price can benefit workers in various ways. A higher wage would mean better living, a lower wage could mean more benefits. The debate still goes on today as for what is a better way to trade however, fair trade will be the focused topic at hand.

Farmers and farm workers benefit from fair trade in several ways; one being the labor conditions. Farmers that are involved in fair trade organizations are labor enforced which means no child labor and reasonable work hours. They receive a fair living wage and safe working conditions. According to Trans Fair Trade USA, another benefit farmers working with fair trade is that they democratically get to determine how much their revenues will be.

The difference between conventional supplying and fair trade is that with conventional supply often many unnecessary middle men involved which allows the farmer to not receive a fair price on their produce. They get a lower price because according to the site “Green America” conventional suppliers go through at least eight different divisions before it finally gets to you. With fair trade, they eliminate as many of those divisions as possible which Green America counted as a difference of four.

Not only in the U.S, but individuals from other countries don’t make enough money from their produce. In an article I read about a cocoa farmer in Ghana she doesn’t nearly make enough to support her family by selling her cocoa beans to the Ghanaian government. This results in her being cheated out of her hard work and get little for it. Herself and other cocoa farmers decided to band together to make their own company which sells the cocoa beans and in turn, makes them well over what they were making before and the excess amount of money goes to making improving their community.

One type of farming that benefits from fair trade are the small scale farmers. Small scale farmers have made an impact on several areas in the U.S. According to SPIN-farming (sub-acre plot intensive) “farming as a small business in cities and suburbs and attempts to remove the two largest barriers for new farmers--land and capital”. By doing this it ensures that farmers are more passionate about their farming while promoting sustainability and entrepreneurship. The local buyer benefits from this because he or she knows that what they are getting are healthy, non commercial, industrialized crops.

The arch-rival of fair trade and the local small scale farms are factory farms. Factory farming use commodities such as feed, fuel fertilizer, and pesticides to produce their crops. With industrial agriculture, the focus is on how much is produced rather then the quality of them and keeping the cost of production low while doing so. Although cost of food is low when we purchase it, there are many downsides to this way of farming. One being the use of pesticides, according to the UCUSA.org site it states: “Farms that grow one or two crops inevitably invite pests and usually require heavy doses of insecticides and herbicides to control them.” By consuming pesticides it harms our body. The EPA says “pesticides block the body's uptake of nutrients critical for proper growth and wreak havoc on development by permanently altering the way a child's system functions”. Some experts even go as far to say that it may disrupt the development of a child’s central nervous system.

Another disadvantage to industrial farming is the way the animals are raised. Unlike the imagery of a red barn with cows roaming freely, its quite the opposite. The EPA states that an animal will live up to 45 days in a confined space with no vegetation or grass. There is a large number of a specific type of animal that are stored closely with one another. Within a confined space, that means no fresh air or sunlight for these animals. Also, rather then using the manure as a compost for the soil, it is mixed with the urine and outside water which is either stored under the facility or in an air lagoon outside. This releases fumes that poison the air, pollute the water, and release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

With industrial agriculture, this usually leaves one corporation to decide and run how the farm which includes production, materials used to grow the crops, and control over the animals within that farm area. This also forces smaller local farmers around them to work with the industrial farm under a contract which forces them to raise and grow their crops the way they would on the larger industrial farm.

The good news is you can make a difference in this process by supporting the fair trade products. Instead of buying the normal industrial food, opt for the purchase thats labeled “fair trade certified”. It can be found among various products such as vanilla, olive oil, sugar, coffee, bananas, and others. This will support the smaller local farms while at the same time benefitting your health by knowing that you are consuming food that is pesticide free. The farmers from the small scale farm would be happy as well.

Other ways to support fair trade farmers are by simply encouraging others to buy fair trade products as well. The more people that support, the more the farmers gain. On the equal exchange website is states that Media, Pennsylvania was the first to become a “Fair Trade Town” meaning the whole town only buys Fair Trade Products. By persuading your friends, family, or neighbors you may be able to turn your community into a Fair Trade supporting community.