Fair Trade: Good for farmers, the land, consumers—and business

 

 

Paul Rice started out as an anti-capitalist labor organizer, working with coffee farmers in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Over time he saw that what growers needed most was a fair price for their product—and so began his work as a Fair Trade advocate. He returned to the US to study business, and founded Fair Trade USA, where he was CEO for 26 years. Winner of many awards for social and ethical innovation, he’s author of the new book, Every Purchase Matters: How Fair Trade Farmers, Companies, and Consumers Are Changing the World.

TIMELINE
3’40.5451 Paul moved to Nicaragua in 1983 to work with coffee farmers and at first worked with aid programs
4’55.9467 organizing farmer-owned co-ops
5’26.8370
7’15.6503 “trade not aid”
8’18.4882 farmers’ “journey out of poverty”
10’23.5730 move from Nicaragua to the US to use Fair Trade as a vehicle to help farmers and workers, and catch up in the US with what Europe was already doing.
11’22.9854 Fair Trade certification
12’31.2363 the idea that Fair Trade brings a market premium…so far they’ve brought in over a billion dollars to a million farmers
13’21.3682 the fair trade premium is controlled by the farmers or the workers through democratic process
15’41.7312 the process itself is about grassroots democracy building, they’re in charge of their own development
17’29.5927 they were doing regenerative agriculture before it was called that, and they were growing their own food to eat.
20’26.6093 many are doing certified organic and climate-smart practices
21’55.6342 many different products are certified fair trade
24’41.6700 can big-corporate capitalism ever be fair?
27’12.5127 the high quality beans are often grown by one acre farms
28’16.4108 looking at supply chains through the lens of “ethical sourcing”
28’44.4256 consumers want to know what it took to make the products–if it’s ethical and environmentally sound
29’37.1582 “business as usual” — exploitive and extractive capitalism. But it’s evolving
31’27.6438 is fair trade really even a cost to the company if there are so many benefits to them
35’14.8419 relative merits of voluntary certifications vs. mandated regulation
36’36.0339 sustainability and profitability can go hand in hand
37’56.3749 is being a conscious consumer a luxury?
41’46.2944 are there limits to economic growth?
44’41.0987 the importance of storytelling and hopes for the book — which is for both business people, movement-builders, and consumers
46’57.9128 paulrice.org