>> Fair trade spirits — made from quinoa. Qino One Vodka wants you to take a survey to let ‘em know how you feel about fair trade quinoa spirit.

>> Write about “How selling goods under the Fair Trade label has improved the lives of people who produce goods such as coffee, tea, chocolate, rice, and flowers” to win a OneWorld’s Citizen Journalism Award, aka $125. I’m guessing it’ll help if you either 1) sell fair trade goodies, or 2) have visited people who produce fair trade goodies. That excludes me.

>> The United Farm Workers have wine: Black Eagle Wines, “a vintage of Napa Valley wines that celebrate justice and help organize people to earn a better living without having to rely on government assistance,” according to UFW’s press release. You must commit to at least half a case — that’s 6 bottles for $150 — to support the cause. (thanks for the tip, Genise)

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>> John Oliver suggests a label for all non-fair trade items on Comedy Central .

>> A Fair trade map! Find out where the fair trade towns and organizations are via this Google maps mashup. Maybe I can just get rid of my list of fair trade coalitions altogether.

>> An interview with fair trade company Alter Eco’s Edouard Rollet on SFist. On what to do with $15 and 2 hours in SF: “Get a coffee and some good fair-trade chocolate and eat and drink with the view at the top of Dolores Park.”

>> An argument for knowing your coffee Jon B. Rogers is the president and founder of the family-owned, San Leandro-based Rogers Family Company, which includes the Organic Coffee Co. and the San Francisco Bay Coffee Co.

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As of today, the US officially has a fair trade city: San Francisco! NoCalians are celebrating with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at Dolores Park in San Francisco; they’ve timed their announcement to fall on World Fair Trade Day.

San Francisco may be the first fair trade city, but we already have six fair trade towns in the U.S. What’s the diff between a city and a town? That’s what I asked Wikipedia yesterday, but didn’t get a straight answer. Apparently, “the definition of cities (and town, villages, townships, etc.) is a matter of state laws and the definitions vary widely by state.”

I assumed that cities are relatively large, well-known places, while towns are teensy places out in the middle of nowhere. However, I then discovered that Milwaukee — a sort of but not totally way out in the middle of nowhere place — is on the list of 6 towns that received Fair Trade Town status.

So as of now, it’s unclear whether San Francisco will be considered the 7th of Fair Trade Towns, or the first Fair Trade City. In any case, here’s the list of fair trade cities and towns:

>> Media, Penn. (July 2006)
>> Brattleboro, Vermont (June 2007)
>> Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Oct. 2007)
>> Amherst, Mass. (Nov. 2007)
>> Taos, New Mexico (March 2008)
>> Northampton, Mass. (April 2008)
>> San Francisco, Calif. (May 2008)

You’ll notice I actually mentioned the first two towns in posts then sort of lost interest…. But now I’m getting interested again. Fair trade LA’s gotten more active — I wonder if we can either work with that group or create a new Fair Trade Santa Monica group to make the beach city I live in a Fair Trade Town –

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Hello World Fair Trade Day! Yes, today, May 10, is World Fair Trade Day. And I hope you’re reading this before noon (or 3 pm on the east coast) because that’s when the World’s Largest Fair Trade Coffee Break happens.

Fair trade, in case you’re a newbie, is about promoting equitable trade between “developed” and “third world” countries. Business as usual tries to squeeze out cheap labor and cheap exports out of less developed countries, then pretends altruism by donating “handouts” that equal just a fraction of what business unfairly squeezed out in the first place. In contrast, fair trade advocates promote equatable trade, arguing that trade on more equal footing, NOT aid (handouts), will help resolve some of the inequities in our world.

That sounds heavy, but for today, all you really need to do is take a coffee break. Fair trade advocates are trying to set the record for the largest fair trade coffee break ever! That sounds exciting, except that my guess is that this feat won’t actually be difficult to achieve, since no such big fair trade coffee break’s been planned ever before. I think the idea’s that we’re trying to set a big, impressive baseline that we can try to beat in years to come.

Anyway — Fun events are happening all around the U.S. Near me, Los Angeles has a weekend full of activities planned. And in San Francisco, even the mayor’s involved! Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition will “proclaim” San Francisco as a Fair Trade City at an event in Dolores park from noon to 2 pm in Dolores Park. Check out the fair trade events calendar to find out what’s going down near you.

[crossposted on BlogHer]

Tags: fairtrade, coffee

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Tomorrow, May 10, is World Fair Trade Day! And in celebration, World’s Largest Fair Trade Coffee Break happens tomorrow afternoon. Technically, the event happens at noon on the west coast — but any time in the afternoon will do to count towards the total.

So caffeinate wit fellow fair trade activists. In L.A., you’ve got two events to pick from:

>> Fair Trade LA will have a booth all day at the “Revel with a Cause” Santa Monica Festival at Clover Park, 2600 Ocean Park Blvd., in Santa Monica. Go not just for the coffee, but for the solar-powered music performances, recycled crafty activities, international cuisine served on biodegradable plates, and more.

>> Ten Thousand Villages Pasadena will provide hot and iced fair trade beverages - along with chocolate and other samples — to all visitors who celebrate the coffee break with them at 3pm tomorrow. Just stop by the store at 496 S. Lake Ave. in Pasadena. There, you’ll even be able to buy fair trade flowers for Mother’s Day.

Fair trade activities will continue throughout the weekend:

>> Later tomorrow night, celebrate the launch of a partnership between Ten Thousand Villages and Anti-Body to support a new fair trade coconut oil co-op in Liberia. Wine and appetizers will be served. When & Where: May 10 at 7 pm, at Ten Thousand Villages, 496 S. Lake Ave. in Pasadena.

>> On Monday, Jacqueline Decarlo — author of “Fair Trade: A Beginner’s Guide” and former director of the Fair Trade Resource Network — will speak. When & Where: May 12 at 7 pm, at Ten Thousand Villages, 496 S. Lake Ave. in Pasadena.

>> On Tuesday, Jacqueline Decarlo will speak again. When & Where: May 13, at 7 pm, UCLA’s Royce Hall, Room 156, 752 Charles E. Young Dr., Los Angeles.

Tags: fairtrade, coffee

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So it got warm in L.A., then semi-cold again — and I’ve been drinking fair trade, organic hot chocolate, courtesy of fair trade company Equal Exchange.

Equal Exchange’s Spicy Hot Cocoa’s got a kick of chili and cinnamon. Those spices, along with the cocoa powder, sugar cane juice, and vanilla powder, are all organic! And the cocoa and sugar are fair trade certified.

Which made me wonder: Why isn’t the vanilla fair trade certified?

Of course, TransFair USA — the nonprofit that awards fair trade certification for U.S. products, allows many products with just one fair trade ingredient to get fair trade certified. For example, some of Ben & Jerry’s coffee-flavored ice creams are fair trade certified because they incorporate fair trade coffee — despite the fact that the sugar, which makes up a larger part of the ice cream than the coffee, is not fair trade certified.

Considering that, Equal Exchange is already going the extra mile by using both fair trade sugar AND fair trade cocoa in its hot chocolate. Still, here’s what I heard back about the vanilla, thanks to Dary Goodrich, Chocolate Products Manager at Equal Exchange:

At this point, we have not been able to find a FTC vanilla suitable to our needs (e.g. organic, the correct format to work in our hot cocoa, and price accessible). This is something we will continue to look into as FTC vanilla becomes more readily available in the market. As you know we made the switch for our bars, which just requires ground vanilla beans and not vanilla powder. Also, vanilla is less than 1% of the product, which means we don’t buy much of it.

This answer satisfies me — but at the same time makes me a little sad that even a fair trade committed company like Equal Exchange can’t use fair trade vanilla in all its products….

That said, Equal Exchange’s come out with four different hot choco products, and to please the purists, some are all fair trade. The Drinking Chocolate and Baking Cocoa are made entirely of fair trade ingredients.

After trying out Equal Exchange’s cocoa, I was surprised to find that fair trade cocoa’s actually become a rather competitive market! I stopped by my neighborhood Whole Foods and Co-opportunity to find three different fair trade cocoas readily available on the shelves:

>> Dagoba offers a spicy Xocolatl Hot Chocolateas well as an unsweetened hot chocolate

>> Lake Champlain offers a hot chocolate
as well as unsweetened vegan cocoa.

>> Green & Black’s website only shows one fair trade cocoa powder, but I could swear I also saw a fair trade Maya Gold hot cocoa at Whole Foods the other day.

>> Trader Joe’s offers its own fair trade certified cocoa powder.

All of these products are both fair trade and organic certified — though the former comes with caveats. The unsweetened cocoas for all companies are basically made of organic, fair trade cocoa powder, so those are pretty much 100% fair trade products. As for the multi-ingredient hot cocoas, however, I couldn’t find out from these companies websites if the sugar and other ingredients were fair trade certified.
‘
I’ll keep looking into that — but I appreciate the fact that Equal Exchange lists both its full ingredient lists — including organic and fair trade information — on its website.

[crossposted on BlogHer]

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Latest from Emerald City, my enviro-blog at LAtimes.com

>> Metro’s long range plan: How will it affect you?. How would you like your commute speed to drop another 14 miles per hour? That’s what Metro projects will happen to freeway speeds by 2030 due to population and employment growth in the L.A. area — if we do nothing to fix the situation.

Yesterday I wrote a bunch of anti junk mail posts:

>> Get the ‘Do Not Mail’ registry started. The good people at ForestEthics have gotten the battle against junk mail started with a petition — addressed to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — calling for a Do Not Mail registry.

>> ProQuo: Get just the junk mail you want to get. ProQuo reduces all different types of junk mail, from weekly circulars to marketing lists to ValPak envelopes. All you have to do is create a profile, and you’ll get a full screen of different lists you can opt out of:

>> The proliferation of de-junk-mailing services. De-junk-mailing’s becoming big business! Suddenly, the Internet’s full of companies that want to get rid of your junk mail for you — for a small fee.

And a linky post:

>> A.M. Greenlist: Waxman keeps busy

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Latest from Emerald City, my enviro-blog at LAtimes.com

>> Q&A: Those annoying produce stickers. Yes, you can actually upcycle these sticky things — and support recycled art :)

>> Get an eco-facial in Los Angeles. Over the holidays I decided I was going to treat myself to a new year’s facial. Suddenly, it’s March! So for all of you ready for a spring facial, here are the eco-spas on top of my list, sorted by location.

>> Green communities, online and in your ‘hood. Feel like the only environmentalist on your block? A whole bunch of enviro-networking websites want you as a green friend — and each has a unique twist.

>> The Plague that is the plastic bag, in photos. See a photo of the L.A. River, awash with plastic bags after rain. The photo’s a part of Guardian UK’s 8-picture series on plastic bags, ugging up places from China to Somalia to everywhere in between.

And a few linky posts:

>> A.M. Greenlist: Hear the real sonar
>> A.M. Greenlist: Fake flipper for a turtle named Allison.

Image courtesy of stickermanproduceart

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Was your Valentine’s Day sweeter this year with fair trade chocolates?! Because even the companies selling un-fair trade chocolate that could have been made using abusive child labor got a little fair trade love on cupid’s holiday. Some fair trade advocates sent fair trade certified flowers to the CEOs of major choco companies that aren’t cleaning up their act, asking them to, you know, clean it up.

Which nasty companies are these? Archer Daniels Midland, Barry Callebaut, Hershey’s, Mars, Blommers, Nestlé, Cargill, World’s Finest Chocolate and Guittard Chocolate Company. Yep — Unfortunately, most of the choco brands we came to love as kids are not actually very lovable.

Along with the flowers, fair trade activists asked these big bad companies to sign the “Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing,” a statement agreeing to eliminate harmful labor conditions from cocoa supply chains.

Did the roses entice the big companies to sign? No — but that’s no big surprise. I mean, we’re talking about the same big companies that watered down the U.S. House of Representatives’ effort to address child labor in the cocoa trade. This effort — called the Harkin-Engel Protocol — was watered down AND pushed to a later date. Now, what the big companies need to do is NOT actually eliminate child labor but simply monitor half of the cocoa-farming areas in the Ivory Coast and Ghana by July 2008. And even that goal and deadline look like they’re not going to be met at this point!

Considering the fact that the “Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing” sets even higher labor and fair trade standards than this Harkin-Engel Protocol, the big companies were hardly expected to sign on.

So what was the point of even having the “Commitment to Ethical Cocoa Sourcing”? Well, at least it brought some attention to the choco issues during the choco-heavy Valentine’s Day. Honestly, the choco problem seems so vast — and the big companies that hold most of the power here don’t seem to care any more than they did years and years ago when the issue was first raised.

So what’s an activist to do? The International Labor Rights Forum, one of the signatories of the commitment, encourages people to send a letter to Nestle — but I have to say that seems pretty pointless to me at this point, considering we’ve been sending Nestle letters for years, to no effect whatsoever. Sending a letter seems more like a feel-good effort — though perhaps it’s a good symbolic act….

My opinion: Stop buying the crappy chocolate. This will speak volumes more than participating in yet another one of those ubiquitous “click here to send another pointless email to a heartless company” dealio that does little and tends to increase activist apathy (because there are so many of these “send an email” type things). Just buy fair trade chocolate, or if you can’t find that, opt for organic chocolate as a second best choice.

If you’re in L.A., here a list of places you can find fair trade chocolates near you. If you need to buy online, Global Exchange has a nice assortment of fair trade chocolates to pick from.

[crossposted on BlogHer]

Tags: fairtrade, chocolate

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I’d like to think fair trade chocolates are getting more kids engaged with the fair trade movement while they’re still quite young. But by and large, many fair trade activists seem to enter the movement later on, when they get to their college campuses. Now, fair trade organizations and companies are working hard to get kids into fair trade at a younger age.

Latest case in point: Equal Exchange’s comprehensive fair trade curriculum, dubbed “Win Win Solutions: An Introduction to Fair Trade and Cooperative Economics.” Equal Exchange — a fair trade co-op that sells fair trade coffee, chocolate, and other goodies — apparently got a lot of requests for educational materials from schools using the co-op’s fair trade fundraiser materials. So Equal Exchange created an entire curriculum.

Designed for kids in grades 4 through 9, “Win Win Solutions” connects the dots between food production, global trade, and American consumerism while also covering cooperative economics. According to Equal Exchange, “Win Win Solutions” also emphasizes the “link between personal actions and community efforts to create a more just and sustainable world,” showing students that they have a role to play in all of this.

The curriculum, contained in a 120-page book, consist of four units and 16 classes that include engaging classroom activities and are flexible enough to incorporate in part or whole into existing lesson plans. “Win Win Solutions” also satisfies many basic US curriculum standards — including those for social studies, geography, math, and economics.

So — If you teach grades 4 to 9, check out a sample lesson from “Win Win Solutions” here, and if you like what you see, get your copy of “Win Win Solutions for $25 at the Equal Exchange store.

Teach younger students? Global Exchange offers an interdisciplinary Fair Trade Cocoa curriculum — perfect for Valentine’s Day, and appropriate for kids in grades K-6. It’s available free for download here in exchange for your contact info. As a bonus, you’’ll be entered in a drawing to win over $75 worth of Fair Trade chocolate and educational materials!

And for a curriculum that spans K - 12, try TransFair USA’s “Focus on Fair Trade” curriculum, which is “designed to meet multiple age-appropriate standards in a variety of subject and skill areas.” “Focus” consists of three units, each focusing on a different fair trade commodity and targeted for different age levels. The K-2 unit covers cocoa, the 3-6 unit bananas, and the 7-12 unit coffee — I guess they don’t want to encourage coffee drinking too early on! The entire curriculum’s free for PDF download.

Anyone here tried out these curricula in the classroom? I’ve only taught college-age kids — though I’ve spoken at some high school conferences — so unfortunately, these aren’t really made for me. Come to think of it, maybe I assume that it’s mainly college-age kids who get into fair trade because it’s mainly college-age kids I come into contact with….

[crossposted on BlogHer]

Tags: fairtrade, equalexchange, education

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