TransFair's Position on Plantations
Published January 12, 2009 @ 01:40PM PT
The Plantation Question has been up for debate for a while in the Fair Trade community. The discussion has been percolating a lot more lately ever since Parminder Bahra's Times article came out. I've called out to those in the Fair Trade community to give their take on the question and they have been really helpful at putting things in perspective. Most of the opinions that have been brought forward have been against allowing tea plantations in the Fair Trade system, so I reached out to TransFair and asked them what they of the debate going on. They got back to me today and sent over their official position on plantations and Fair Trade certification.
Although Fair Trade began with small farmer cooperatives, the Fair Trade System includes certification of hired-labor situations because of the significant benefits to be had for workers. We believe that not including workers on tea, banana and flower plantations excludes a landless population that is disadvantaged and needs our help to improve the conditions in which they work.
The situation facing many tea estates in India and Sri Lanka is the result of decades of poor trading relationships and low prices in the conventional tea market. Tea producers around the world are struggling to maintain viable margins in today's harsh economic climate. Rising production and stagnant consumption have resulted in global oversupply.
Production costs have continued to rise - agricultural inputs, fuel, transport and workers' wages and benefits. But tea prices have dropped by nearly a half in real terms since the 1970s. Some businesses are literally struggling to survive. Of course conditions for workers are affected. That is why Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) and TransFair USA work with tea estates struggling to stay afloat in a difficult market and ones that are keen to improve the conditions of their workers. The primary target for Fair Trade is disadvantaged workers and farmers.
Before becoming Fair Trade Certified, estates need to demonstrate that they meet Fair Trade standards to pay decent wages, guarantee the right to join a trade union, ensure health and safety standards, and provide adequate housing and other social provision where relevant.
In the hired labor standards, the social development criteria are intended to ensure that companies recognize and support Fair Trade as a means to increase the empowerment and well-being of their workers. They protect workers' basic rights as defined in the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) relating to:
* Freedom from discrimination (on the grounds of race, religion, gender, politics, and ethnic or social origin)
* Freedom of association (the right to join a trade union) and collective bargaining
* Fair conditions of employment (wages, working hours, overtime, sick pay, leave etc)
* No forced or child labor (minimum age of 15 years)
* Occupational health and safety (a safe working environment).
The economic development criteria ensure the use of the Fair Trade premium for the social and economic benefit of the workers, their families and their communities. The premium cannot be used for the benefit of the company owners. A Joint Body is set up, comprising elected worker representatives and a minority of management representatives whose role is to assist and support the Joint Body in the management of the premium fund. The premium is invested in projects agreed by the Joint Body following consultation with the workforce. Workers' representatives receive appropriate training in areas such as finance, record keeping, and administration in order to build their capacity and ability to deal with their additional Joint Body responsibilities.
Beside the premium administration it is expected that the establishment of Joint Bodies will have other positive outcomes such as the development of good working relationships between the management and workers; the empowerment of members through the process of working with Fair Trade; the acquisition of skills in leadership and communication, project planning and project management necessary to function effectively; developing the capacity to operate without further assistance.
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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.
If, like me, you sometimes cheat and go straight to the comments allow me boil the above 544 words down to this:- Life is hard, seriously, for countless workers on tea plantations and extending Fair Trade certification to some of these plantations can make some material difference for those laborers.
The problem with this defense of plantation certification is that it doesn’t address (or even acknowledge) the alternative, namely a Fair Trade movement that is focused exclusively (as it once was) on serving small farmers – organized into democratic cooperatives - but who today find themselves fighting an uphill struggle against not only all the typical old-school plantations but now also against the officially endorsed Fair Trade Certified™ plantations as well.
A second problem we believe is that thanks to all the success of Fair Trade coffee, and to a lesser extent cocoa & chocolate, both of which are all about small farmers, we believe that the vast majority of consumers who consciously buy Fair Trade tea think they, too, are supporting small family farms, when in fact we estimate almost all of the Fair Trade tea sold in the U.S. comes from plantations.
Let’s take the example of rooibos tea (aka ‘red tea’ or ‘red bush tea’). There’s lots of Fair Trade Certified™ rooibos in your favorite grocery store.
The Khoisan peoples of South Africa, the original inhabitants of the Kalahari and adjacent deserts and who originally cultivated rooibos, were first pushed off most of the best rooibos lands by white colonialists and later pushed further afield by the governments of the Apartheid era. During this time white settlers and entrepreneurs were given a hand to set up and later expand large scale rooibos farms. To this day, even after the onset of democratic elections in 1994, these white-owned plantations still enjoy the vestigial benefits of those centuries of preferential treatment, including the best lands, infrastructure and access to markets, credits, etc.
Therefore when you put that box of Fair Trade Certified™ rooibos in your shopping cart who do assume is at the other end of that purchase? There’s a 98% chance that it’s a white plantation owner. (The other 2% comes from small-scale Khoisan family farms, and is marketed by Equal Exchange or maybe one other dedicated Fair Trade brand). Now, does something seem wrong with that picture? (For more on the reality of rooibos see my colleague’s article “Tea with F.W. DeKlerk” http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop/2008/08/12/tea-with-fw-deklerk/ )
Remember, Fair Trade is a tool of limited size. After 20+ years Fair Trade still represents just 3% of the U.S. coffee market – and that is by far the most mature Fair Trade category. Meanwhile there are millions of small farmers outside the Fair Trade tent who need an opportunity. This includes hundreds of thousands of small-scale tea growers, too.
Further, the public rightly expects a lot from Fair Trade. So let’s ensure that Fair Trade is leveraged to its original – and greatest – effect by using it to help, however modestly, re-balance these rural agricultural communities so that small-scale family farmers finally have some kind of chance. The alternative is what we have now, where too often (tea, wine, fruit juice) the Fair Trade stamp is actually helping to solidify the market dominance of plantations, not challenge it.
Posted by Rodney North on 01/12/2009 @ 08:49PM PT
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