Honey’s become a major environmental topic these days, what with huge numbers of bees vanishing mysteriously in North America. The phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder, has everyone from foodies to farmers to filmmakers buzzing about what’s causing the problem and how to fix it.

So not too long ago, I wrote about ways to get bee-friendly — the top suggestion being to buy local honey. But another feel-good type of honey’s hitting store shelves these days: Wholesome Sweeteners’ fair trade honey.

Fair trade honey helps beekeepers from less developed countries get a fair price for their products — but because many of these countries are so far away, buying fair trade honey can seem like the antithesis of buying local. And while most fair trade food products, like coffee and chocolate, aren’t grown in the U.S. (except for Kona coffee) and don’t create a local vs. fair trade conflict, local honey’s available in many U.S. neighborhoods. What’s a socio-eco conscious consumer to choose?

Well, one thing to keep in mind is that the U.S. imports about 70% of its honey because domestic honey production doesn’t meet the demand. TransFair USA, the nonprofit that certifies fair trade products in the U.S., points out that these imports usually come from “impoverished beekeepers in developing nations throughout Asia and Latin America” who are “dependent on local middlemen to purchase their honey, often at a fraction of its worth.” Certainly, if we’re going to be importing honey anyway, we should do our best to pay fair prices to these beekeepers.

Plus, not all honeys are created equal. When I go to the farmers’ market, honey vendors will usually give out taste samples of different types of honey — a practice that reminds me that honey isn’t just a commodity product. Each of these local honeys have their own unique characteristics, histories, ingredients. The same goes for fair trade honeys.

“There’s a lot to be said for local honey, but this is just something different,” says Pauline McKee (right), marketing director of Wholesome Sweeteners, whom I met at a dinner organized by TransFair USA a while back. Pauline talked about fair trade honey not so much as a competing product to local honey, but a different sort of product altogether that foodies might want to add to their kitchens.

What makes me most excited about Wholesome Sweeteners’ foray into fair trade honey is the fact that the company’s got a very broad reach. Wholesome Sweeteners’ sugars are not just in Whole Foods and hippie co-ops, but also on the shelves of mainstream supermarket shelves like Albertson’s and Vons. The fair trade company’s basically made fair trade sweeteners an accessible option for all Americans — an amazing feat, considering the fact that many supermarkets have yet to carry even one type of fair trade chocolate. If Wholesome Sweeteners can bring fair trade honey to mainstream consumers, the face of the honey industry as a whole could really begin to change.

Of course, all this discussion about fair trade vs. local hone may seem like much ado about almost nothing — since little of the honey available on supermarket shelves today is local, organic, or fair trade. At this point, opting for any of these three options is a great first step for consumers.

As for me, I’m currently making my way through a jar of Bill’s Bees Wildfower Honey from California, which I got to replace the jar of Wholesome Sweeteners’ organic and fair trade Raw Organic Honey I licked clean –

Related links:
>> Eric Blair at Charleston City Paper writes an informative and nuanced article about the friction between the fair-trade and local-first movements.

>> Global Exchange Fair Trade Store blog points out that many fair trade items in the U.S. are sold through local merchants, thus combining fair trade with buying local.

[crossposted on BlogHer]

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