Questioning the Plantation Question
Published January 08, 2009 @ 08:46AM PT
Reader Helen Bode pointed out to me Cafédirect's response to Parminder Bahra's recent article on the abuses found on tea estates. (Cafédirect are pioneers in ethical business and have been working directly with farmers in disadvantaged countries to build better future through Fairtrade)
[T]here was an interesting piece in today’s Times Online about Fairtrade Tea factories. It’s certainly healthy to ask questions, but I think the story is incomplete at best. Fairtrade as a model has been as effective in creating sustainable development as any I’ve seen, and at we can point out 1.4 million stories of how Fairtrade has helped the lives of those in need. Some farmers may not see individual benefits in terms of more money in their pockets, but the premiums paid by Cafédirect (which, by the way, are 20% higher than other Fairtrade buyers) build health clinics and drill wells for fresh water that support entire communities.
Thanks for the note Helen. I just wanted to point out that the article doesn't question whether or not the Fair Trade system is benefiting millions of farmers around the world -- because it has -- but rather Bahra has ignited the dialogue of the plantations' role in the Fair Trade system. The Plantation Question is about whether or not plantations play a transformative role in the Fair Trade system. Once again, as it has been pointed out by Fair Trade pioneers, Equal Exchange --
We are not surprised to hear of these shortcomings and abuses occurring on Fair Trade plantations. In fact, the findings presented in this article only serve to reaffirm our belief that plantations do not belong in the Fair Trade system in the first place. Equal Exchange doesn’t debate whether “good” plantations exist (for example, those where workers are treated “well”), nor whether estate workers deserve to enjoy better working conditions. They do.
We believe that “Fair Trade” needs to mean “Small Farmer,” and that the standards which apply to Fair Trade coffee can and should be the sole standard in tea as well as coffee.
There is no questioning that Fair Trade offers a better alternative to the current conventional trading system that we are familiar with today that puts profit over people, it is questioned whether or not plantations who have been abusive in the past, and are still reported to be, should play a role in the Fair Trade system. If certain plantations are to continue carrying the Fair Trade label, what needs to be done to improve the system in order to make sure that plantations are keeping up with the strict standards?
The Fair Trade movement is evolving everyday in order to be a better system to prove that it is no longer business as usual where human rights are being neglected and the environment is being degraded when producing a product, so there is deep concern in me, and surely many in the Fair Trade movement that there continues to be trust in the system. I know the Fair Trade system works, and has worked for many in the world, and as the movement expands there are growing pains where issues need to be ironed out and focus needs to remain on benefiting the disadvantaged producer. So my question still stands: what should be the next steps?
As Cafédirect points out in their blog post about the positive impact that Fair Trade has been capable of, the best way is to hear it directly from the farmer. A Kenyan tea farmer shares a poem about how Fairtrade has changed his and his community's life for the better:
The Fairtrade Tree Poem
Thrive, thrive and blossom,
With shooting buds of hope,
Branches with shade of livelihood,
The trunk bears the strength of the disadvantaged,
Deeply rooted to live.
In you oh fair-trade tree,
Birds will build nests,
Nests to shelter the poor.
A shelter to lay eggs.
Eggs of a better able society.
Your bark oh fair-trade tree,
Winds the ligaments of the community.
It keeps them close and strong.
Fair will we be to you,
Promise to tender you our hope.
Water you with natural water adherence
Mulch you with compliance,
Weed all the vices and non standards,
Oh our lovely fair-trade tree.
The beauty of our environs
Your green colour, oh.
Shows your nature of fairness.
Composed by Murerwa G Thirinja
Chairman, Fairtrade Supervisory Committee Michimikuru
We must continue to hear stories like this, of progress and hope, and make sure that the Fair Trade system continues to inspire poetry and growth in farmers and communities.
[photo: www.cafedirection.co.uk]
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Comments (2)
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Author
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Zarah is the Operations Manager for the Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store, a project of the international human rights organization, Global Exchange. Alongside her work with marginalized communities from all over the world to get their products into the international market, Zarah serves to educate and inform the public about a more just and sustainable trading system.
I worked with Cafédirect when the issue of Tea first came up and the thought leaders of the time, people like Pauline Tiffen, could not see tea as anything but a problem for a Fair Trade focussed on marginalised smallholders. The concept of the plantation flies directly in the face of Fair Trade. However, times have changed, organizations much more complex and problematic will need to be dealt with if we are to make Fair Trade a sustainable economic platform for world trade. And we need to do that if we are to eradicate poverty. The World Fair Trade Organization is piloting an organizational tool that has the potential to deliver that. Fair Trade can be a solution on a global scale as well as a local one.
Posted by robin smith on 01/08/2009 @ 12:00PM PT
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Thank you for sticking with this topic and trying to flesh it out.
I'd like to remind folks that:
- Fair Trade was not created so as to merely create a "kinder, gentler" form of commerce that raised wages, etc. while leaving unchanged the basic structures of ownership and control. To do so would be to accept the status quo and the inequitable distribution of land, power, and other resources they have made plantations not only economically possible but inevitable. To extend Fair Trade certification to plantations is to try to ameliorate a bad situation, not to end it.
The aim of Fair Traders in the 1980’s was always more radical than this. Among other goals (like reconnecting consumers and farmers) it was to challenge rural elites such as plantation owners and other large land holders, merchants and exporters who for so long possessed vastly disproportionate economic and political power in their regions, a power they abused more often than not.
Hence Fair Trade's core element of connecting northern importers (ideally committed Fair Traders or 'alternative trade organizations' as they were called back in the day) with democratic cooperatives of small farmers. So rather than try to get a better wage for person X on the Peruvian plantation or Mexican hacienda the goal was to do a complete end-around the local elites by creating a chance for folks like person X to farm his/her own land and work with his/her neighbors within a cooperative and become their own exporters and so on.
It was to get to at least some of the roots of what was so wrong in much of countryside in places ranging from Oaxaca to Sri Lanka.
I think it’s telling that a worker on a Fair Trade certified cut-flower plantation in Kenya, David Gikundi, HAD previously been a small-scale tea grower, but we can assume left it when he couldn’t make a living selling tea. (He’s mentioned in this 2006 Guardian article critiquing the Fair Trade flower industry http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/feb/13/gifts.kenya ) Wouldn’t we all like to see small-scale tea growers like Mr. Gikundi have the chance to make a go of it on his own land, rather than be forced to become a plantation laborer? Yet the Fair Trade industry’s overwhelming focus on, and promotion of, tea plantations leaves small-farmers and their co-operatives out of the picture, and thereby is setting its aspirations way too low.
Now, to answer one of your latest questions – Where Do We Go From Here?
How about the following (just my personal suggestions):
For those truly decent plantations they can get their good practices certified by Rainforest Alliance. This gives them credit for what they’re doing while also enabling the Fair Trade movement to re-dedicate itself to small-farmers.
For conscientious importers/manufacturers they can make fuller use of the CO-OPERATIVES that are already on the FLO register &/or follow Equal Exchange’s lead and spend some time seeking out new co-op partners.
For retailers and advocacy groups, they can learn who is working with co-ops and seek them out.
Advocacy groups can also add this facet to the ongoing Fair Trade education programs and, at minimum, edit out anything they now use that implies that Fair Trade tea, flowers, wine, etc supports small farmers. Currently many broad statements about Fair Trade do just that.
Posted by Rodney North on 01/11/2009 @ 09:37AM PT
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