Keswick and District Fairtrade Directory



‘To Fairtrade or Fair Trade.  That is the question.’

Fairtrade describes the international system of standard setting, validating and monitoring of ‘Third World’ producers and the commodities they produce, and of the certification of marketed products according to internationally agreed criteria, laid down by FLO (FLO = Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International), of which the Fairtrade Foundation is the British affiliate.  (There are 20 such national affiliates around the world, 19 in the ‘North’, and one, Comercio Justo Mexico, in the ‘South’.)

All products marketed through this system in Britain bear the Fairtrade Mark. And only products carrying the Mark have come through the Fairtrade system. The Mark guarantees a fair and stable price to the producer (note: producer), and a premium for social and business investment.  Most products bearing the Mark are food products, but there are now Fairtrade sports balls, and Fairtrade cotton.  As yet there are no Fairtrade craft goods, such as those marketed by Traidcraft and other well regarded ‘alternative’ trading organisations.  In UK over 2500 products now bear the Fairtrade Mark.   

To carry the Fairtrade Mark at least 20% of the ingredients must be Fairtrade (e.g. in Fairtrade muesli only the dried fruits and sugar can be Fairtrade, since the flakes cannot be), whereas bananas are 100% Fairtrade.

‘Fairtrade towns’ (and cities, counties, zones, schools, churches, mosques and synagogues) are validated by the Fairtrade Foundation according to agreed criteria relating solely to the use of and support for Fairtrade products (not fairly traded).  It is a British system, operated by the Fairtrade Foundation.  It has nothing to do with FLO.  It started in 2001, with Garstang, the world’s first Fairtrade Town.  It has been copied in Belgium and Ireland, and is now being looked at in other European countries.  It had just started, too, in USA and Canada. 

Fair Trade is a more general term used in two ways in this country:

1.    To describe any system of trading which is ‘fair’ to poor producers (as free trade so often is not).  Many would say that it includes Fairtrade, though others would apply it only to products which do not yet have the Fairtrade Mark, such as many craft goods sold by Traidcraft and others, for which international standards have not yet been agreed (because it is too complicated, or the amounts are too small and variable).  Often this form of trade is referred to as ‘fair trade’ (without capitals), or ‘fair trading’, and the goods as ‘fairly traded’.  The monitoring of fairly traded goods which do not carry Fairtrade Mark is done by organisations like Traidcraft, Tearfund and other ‘alternative’ trading organisations, which belong to internationally recognised bodies such as IFAT (= International Fair Trade Association, which used to be called the International Federation of Alternative Trade).  Shops which sell these goods in UK usually belong to BAFTS   (= British Association of Fair Trade Shops) – a trade organisation.

2.    As an alternative to Trade Justice, or ‘Make Trade Fair’ (as in Oxfam’s campaign).

‘Fair Trade’ groups, such as Keswick and District Fair Trade Campaign and Cumbria Fair Trade Network, call themselves thus because they promote the buying, selling and consumption of fairly traded goods (in particular those bearing the Fairtrade Mark), and they lobby for changes to the rules of international trade to help poorer countries in general and poorer producers in particular, i.e. fair trade.

And finally, and rather confusingly, in Canada and the USA ‘Fair Trade’ is used to describe the same products (coffees, teas, bananas, etc) which are certified by the same system of standard setting, validating and monitoring (by FLO International) as we use to describe our Fairtrade products.  So what we would (here) call ‘Fairtrade’ products, they would (there) call ‘Fair Trade’.  Which is not very helpful, but that is how it is.  Their equivalents of the Fairtrade Foundation, i.e. their national affiliates of FLO International, are TransFair Canada and TransFair USA.

JH
Keswick
February, 2007 [Updated June 2007]

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