It's Only Fair

It's not hard to incorporate fair trade into your every day life- you could replace your regular coffee with a fair trade brand, shop fair trade for gifts, and wear fair trade clothing. But is it possible to live your whole life fairly? Probably not, but how close can you get to that? In this post, I'll be going through an average day and taking some of the little things you and I use everyday and seeing how many of them could be fair trade.

"Getting Ready" products:

After some extensive searching, I think I may have found one of the best companies ever. It's called The Body Shop, and they're so committed to fair trade, they set up their own organization called Community Trade, which helps them ensure that they use fair trade products as often as possible. After checking out their website, I'm convinced that you can get anything you could ever need to get ready in the morning and then some. They have lotions and soaps and hair products and make up and fragrances and even a men's shop. I was really impressed with the variety they carry and that the prices weren't astronomically high - in fact, they're competitive with prices I've seen from non-fair trade companies for higher quality products. Though I haven't tried any of their products yet, I'm planning on it.

Here's their website: http://www.thebodyshop-usa.com

Clothing: 

I know I've mentioned them before, but I love People Tree. They're very fashion forward and for what you're getting, I think the prices are amazing (they show up as British pounds on the site, so make sure you convert them to dollars when you're shopping!). But what about other brands? Check out this website here. It's a huge directory of fair trade brands from all over the world. If you're really into fashion and fair trade, I'd definitely check it out.

Food:

What could be more fair than buying local? Not only are you buying fresh foods, but you're also helping out local farmers in your community - that's a win-win. Easiest way to do that? Go to a Farmer's Market, where the vendors are all in one place. Since many of One Fair World's customers are Salem locals, here's the link to the Salem Saturday Market website.



Those are the things I go through on a daily basis. Little things. And looking through what I've found, it's definitely possible to replace a ton of those little things in your life with fair trade things. As far as living a completely fair life though - nearly impossible in the society we live in. There are no fair trade cars or refrigerators or computers. Not yet at least, and even if there were, would average people be able to afford them? I doubt it unless there are some big changes, and those don't happen overnight. The point of this post wasn't to show the impossibility of a fair trade lifestyle; it was to show that it was more possible than you'd think, just in little ways.

Fair Trade Plantations?

The idea seems preposterous - including plantations in the Fair Trade program. When I hear the word "plantations," I'm immediately reminded of cotton plantations in the Southern states before the Civil War... isn't that the opposite of what Fair Trade stands for? Yes, but Paul Rice, founder of Fair Trade USA believes that coffee growing estates and plantations can be incorporated into the Fair Trade system IF they follow the ethics guidelines.

Pros:

The goal of the policy change is to increase the amount of sustainable supply to keep up with the demand for Fair Trade coffee, which now represents 5% of all coffee sold in the United States. By including more kinds of producers, not just co-op farmers, Rice hopes to double the impact of Fair Trade by 2015; the change would make it easier for big coffee buyers like Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Starbucks and Whole Foods to buy more Fair Trade products. "Fair Trade can be more than a tiny market niche. It can be scalable and significant," he said, and this philosophy is driving the change in Fair Trade USA's policy.

Cons:

Critics of Rice's plan argue that expanding suppliers to include coffee estates corrupts the core ideology of the whole Fair Trade Movement. Many believe that by allowing plantations to participate in Fair Trade, smaller co-op farmers, the very same people Fair Trade was created to protect, will be run out of business. Before the change in policy, co-op farmers were able to stay in business because of the appeal of Fair Trade to consumers; without that exclusive label, capitalism within the Fair Trade market has the opportunity to stamp out the smaller businesses who can't keep up with large plantations.

The larger question now is how this change in policy will impact other fair trade markets like chocolate, jewelry and art pieces.

So where do you stand? Do believe that Fair Trade should be expanded to include coffee estates? What about for other fair trade goods? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think!

Hello again! In between my last post and this one, I have been so extremely busy with lacrosse and work and my course load that I have had no time to volunteer, which is really a shame because I've missed it... but I am happy to say that not only will the blog be back up again, but I will also be back in the store teaching people about fair trade :)

I'm hoping to update the blog once or twice a week throughout the summer, so keep checking back for articles. I'm really excited about being able to write again and thanks for reading :)