Cuz my computer has no sound, I had to wait till yesterday to get on a computer at school to watch The Bitter Aftertaste, a 17-minute documentary film about fair trade avaliable online.
Afterwards, I was really pissed off.
The film, screened at the Raindance film festival in London in October 2005, is made by students through WorldWrite, an educational charity with a film facility, based in London. Billed as a “hard-hitting” documentary, The Bitter Aftertaste concludes that buying fair trade products only makes western consumers feel better without actually alleviating poverty.
How does the film make this argument? By “proving” that fair trade doesn’t do what it never set out to do — serve as “a panacea for poverty in the developing world.”
For those of you unsure what panacea means: “A remedy for all diseases, evils, or difficulties; a cure-all.”
When did anyone say that fair trade would cure all the evil and difficulties that cause poverty? A step in the right direction, perhaps, but no one said anything about its being a cure-all.
Which is what Barbara Crowther of the Fairtrade Foundation points out in a ThirdSector article regarding the issue: “But we’ve never argued that we were the answer to poverty…. We believe poverty is incredibly complex and deeply embedded in all sorts of issues. We think fair trade is one way that consumers can play their part. It’s not the only thing. We need a range of different strategies.”
The one-sided documentary gives ample time to Alex Singleton, director-general of the Globalization Institute, who says fair trade helps out more affluent farmers into staying in the biz, when they could leave farming to do other things. Now I’m not a big fan of Alex, but even that guy’s since come to half-way embrace fair trade. It looks like as he found out more about fair trade, he learned to like it, albeit with recommendations for improvements.
Yes, it’s a complex issue. But the more research I do, the clearer it is to me that fair trade is an important PART of a solution to alleviating poverty. To pan the fair trade movement for failing to ERADICATE poverty is shortsighted at best.
More on fair trade advocates’ “romantic view of traditional agriculture” later.
Update, 6/11/06: The post on fair trade and a romantic view, here.
Hey Siel and Friends:
While instictively cringing at the film (and doing so without seeing it), and agreeing that FT is NOT and should not be seen as THE answer to poverty, I do think there is a lot of misinformation being tossed around within the FT world about FT’s impact on farmers that would make it easier for folks like these to try to poke holes in what we are doing.
Many industry estimates of the average price that actually gets back to the individual farmers are inflated. I heard at SCAA last year that some NGOs were touting that $1.00 to $1.10 on average gets back to the farm household. This might be true in some cases, but there is no way that this is the norm.
Also, pre-financing is still way less common then it should be. Big players are not being asked to do this when there is no question that they have the resources to make it happen.
One of the biggest issues is that the $1.26/$1.41 FT minimum has NEVER been raised since it was set in the late ’80s. As y’all can imagine, the costs of producers have risen everywhere from costs of certifications, the costs of organic production, transporting, processing, and often taxes on export by producer-country govs. Add on general inflation for household goods and currency fluctuations and the “fair” price is not looking so fair any more.
Back to the TNC bandwagon, friends at FLO have told us that they are getting pressure from the big players to actually adjust prices downward in order to “move more volume”, so the issue is really crucial right now. If anyone is looking for an excuse to write to FLO and TFUSA to agitate, the price issue is something we should all be hammering on.
Yeah, I know this has careened wildly away from Siel’s post on the movie. I guess my point is that we should constantly be examining and re-examining what we claim FT is doing and comparing it to what it actually does. Not in order to serve the whims of bitter neo-liberal clowns, but rather to push this thing forward and to make sure that we don’t rest on what we have done so far.
Like Jerry Reed sang in “Smokey and The Bandit”:
“We got a long way to go, and a short time to get there.”
Peace to you all,
-Matt
Comment by mateotemprano — March 3, 2006 @ 12:02 pm
Ah, yes, more anti-fair trade garbage from people like our friend Al. I’m looking forward to reading his upcoming “white paper” on fair trade. Until then, he’s an opponent of it. Even if he does come around to an understanding that markets fail some of the world’s poorest farmers and that consumer groups have systems already in place to correct them, I’m not expecting much of a contribution. The G.I.’s research rep. is, um, bad. Check out Our Word Is Our Weapon, where numerous examples exist.
Matt’s point is salient given that “few buyers/many sellers” is the basic dynamic governing why fair trade movements started in the first place. Thanks for reminding us that prices in the real world can be cut for farmers through inflation. Are any procedures in place at Transfair or elsewhere to take this into account? Peace.
Comment by Fletch — March 3, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
Hey Fletch:
I am not aware of any intitiative from TFUSA to look at how the prices are actually working for farmers. When I hear price discussed it is usually from the perspective of how raising would affect bigger players and their willingness to come on the scene and move volume. It would be really cool if someone out there would write or call TF and ask what their take is on this.
There is at least one intitative going on in FT coffee to address this, however. At Cooperative Coffees we have raised our minimums to $1.35/$1.50 on all contracts this year. We are also working with our producer partners to come up with a system that evaluates their real costs when looking at a fair price. We hope to have this completed by the fall, when new contracts come around again. At present the co-ops are talking with their members and each other before they come back to us with a recommendation.
The kicker is trying to find a formula, or at least indicators, that can help us get to where we need to be. The question is: Can we come to a price that is truly a “living wage” for farmers and not price ourselves out of the market? Or another way of putting it: Can fair trade really be fair? We shall see…
-Matt
Comment by mateotemprano — March 6, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
I’d think that it would be FLO’s job to look at how the prices are working for farmers, no? After all, TFUSA certifies the products in the US, not the farms in other countries — though I s’pose TFUSA could put pressure on FLO, as could other members of FLO.
Meaning — What can we as consumers and individuals do to influence what FLO does?
Comment by Siel — March 7, 2006 @ 8:11 pm
Matt,
Hi. Good luck with your efforts there. Sometime over the next week or so I’ll write them (F.L.O.) and blog on it. I know next to nothing about the mix of inputs in the production of coffee, so it should be interesting. And, indeed, certifiers are probably reluctant to raise the price given that, at least in the U.S., the fair trade movement is still small.
Comment by Fletch — March 7, 2006 @ 8:45 pm