Equal Exchange Expertise
Equal Exchange's blog, Small Farmers. Big Change, has the tagline: "A green and more just food system starts with small farmers". It gives an impression that Equal Exchange is an actor with the notion, that the key to a fairer global trading system is via supporting small farmers, and not by incorporating large scale plantations like Fair Trade USA is doing with their pilot project incorporating Ipanema Coffees.
Their scepticism of Fair Trade USA is clearly seen in their linking policy. Four examples of this are:
1) Small Farmers. Big Change. links to the online petition "Support Authentic Fair Trade", a public online campaign where laymen and businesses alike can declare that fair trade is a concept for small farmers exclusively. They report that 8200 individuals, 80 food co-operatives, and 700 churches, ATOs, producer groups, and other organisations have signed the petition.
2) Via both their own website and their blog, Equal Exchange links to news media articles debating whether large scale plantations can be certified as fair trade, a question that Fair Trade USA with it's campaign "Fair Trade For All" has a positive answer for. Notably, their own CEO, Bruce Dickinson, is often quoted in these.
3) Equal Exchange links to academic studies about the negative consequences of fair trade certifying plantation coffee. One of the works cited
is American anthropologist Sarah Besky's book "The Darjeeling Distinction" about tea plantation workers in India, stating that the supposed economic benefits from fair trade is drained by corrupt plantation owners and managers and that all the social benefits, i.e. schools and health care, is given on the behalf of wage cuts. She concludes that few of the workers are aware of what fair trade means and how it works, and that the supposedly democratic workers unions, the joint bodies mandatory for fair trade plantations, are run undemocratically by the closest friends of the plantation owner.
Watch a summary of Besky's research beneath
Their scepticism of Fair Trade USA is clearly seen in their linking policy. Four examples of this are:
1) Small Farmers. Big Change. links to the online petition "Support Authentic Fair Trade", a public online campaign where laymen and businesses alike can declare that fair trade is a concept for small farmers exclusively. They report that 8200 individuals, 80 food co-operatives, and 700 churches, ATOs, producer groups, and other organisations have signed the petition.
2) Via both their own website and their blog, Equal Exchange links to news media articles debating whether large scale plantations can be certified as fair trade, a question that Fair Trade USA with it's campaign "Fair Trade For All" has a positive answer for. Notably, their own CEO, Bruce Dickinson, is often quoted in these.
3) Equal Exchange links to academic studies about the negative consequences of fair trade certifying plantation coffee. One of the works cited
is American anthropologist Sarah Besky's book "The Darjeeling Distinction" about tea plantation workers in India, stating that the supposed economic benefits from fair trade is drained by corrupt plantation owners and managers and that all the social benefits, i.e. schools and health care, is given on the behalf of wage cuts. She concludes that few of the workers are aware of what fair trade means and how it works, and that the supposedly democratic workers unions, the joint bodies mandatory for fair trade plantations, are run undemocratically by the closest friends of the plantation owner.
Watch a summary of Besky's research beneath