More than 30 years since the launch of Fairtrade in the UK, international smallholders continue to face livelihood-threatening challenges. Here’s why its proponents argue the certification will endure
When Ruchi Chawla first started working in fashion and textiles in the early 2000s, Ugg boots, miniskirts, and bandanas were wardrobe staples. It was also the start of a new era for ethical trade; following the creation of the Fairtrade Foundation in 1992, officially certified products began to hit UK shelves in 1994. Green and Black’s chocolate bars were the first, and other products slowly followed. Fairtrade cotton started to appear in 2005.
It was a different time back then, says Chawla. “I had friends in Brussels, Amsterdam, who didn’t know what cotton is. [They’d ask]: ‘It’s a plant? Oh, really, cotton is a plant?’”
Sourcing products for large brands, she quickly became disillusioned. “Two things stayed with me, even after I quit those jobs: chemicals are all around us – we are literally wearing chemicals – and [workers] are not treated properly. There was no concept of fair, living wages at that time. You could just see [workers] were really struggling.”
So, when she decided to launch her own organic brand, Cottsbury, Fairtrade certification was non-negotiable. “Fairtrade really means that workers have those regular hours, they’re given their due salaries and bonuses. And, specifically, women are paid, they’re treated as somebody who is working, not just like some helper hanging around. That’s Fairtrade.”
Fairtrade cotton began to appear on the market around 2005. Image: Susan Mohr
Patricia Alexander, the managing director of social lender Shared Interest, agrees: “The early 1990s marked a pivotal shift in ethical trade,” she says. At the time, there were very few competitors offering similar standardised systems in an easy-to-recognise way. Put simply, the small green, blue, and black logo changed the way many people shopped.
It also had a significant impact on producers. “Fairtrade is about much more than better prices,” says Alexander. “It’s about strengthening communities,” she explains, pointing to the Fairtrade requirement for producers to form co-operatives, which helps them make collective decisions about their future.
For Shared Interest, which provides ethical capital and business support to smallholders across the globe, Fairtrade isn’t an add-on to what they do. “It’s at the heart of it”, explains Alexander. “Fairtrade guarantees a baseline of dignity that’s essential if we want farmers and artisans to build sustainable futures.”
Fairtrade certified coffee co-ops are able to invest in development, to improve quality of life. Image: Shelby Murphy Figueroa
Alexander highlights Shared Interest partners such as COOPARM, a coffee co-operative in Peru that has been certified Fairtrade since 2008. In a country where poverty is one of the biggest societal struggles (for coffee growers, the UN describes it as “rampant”), the co-operative has been able to negotiate better prices to not only pay themselves fairly but to invest in development. Money via the Fairtrade premium, an extra sum paid to help improve producers’ quality of life, has proved invaluable. They now have vehicles to transport harvests, a ‘cupping laboratory’ to evaluate the coffee’s aroma, and trees have been planted alongside coffee plants to provide shade and a habitat for wildlife.
It’s a similar story for Educe, a Mexican honey co-operative made up of more than 800 beekeepers. Fairtrade and organic certifications help them push for higher prices in a volatile sector, so they can invest in women’s education and develop new products. The Fairtrade premium, not to mention private lenders such as Shared Interest, can also help soften the blow as the UK and US cut foreign aid.
Fairtrade guarantees a baseline of dignity that’s essential if we want farmers and artisans to build sustainable futures
For shoppers, the Fairtrade mark continues to hold clout. More than 90% of people in the UK recognise it and 83% say they trust it when deciding whether or not a product is ethical. One in three bananas sold in the country is Fairtrade certified, while British tea drinkers are behind 60% of all Fairtrade tea purchases globally.
It’s important to remember, though, says trade justice campaigner and Fairtrade expert Joanna Abena Fianu, that the Fairtrade certification is part of something bigger. “Fair trade is a global movement. You have Fairtrade, one word, the thing you get on the bananas and the coffee, and there’s fair trade, which is about the partnership [between producers and other businesses] – it’s about honouring those individual businesses that are run all around the world.”
While Fairtrade International and the UK’s Fairtrade Foundation are responsible for setting specific standards for certain products, the World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO) works to support organisations that subscribe to its 10 principles of fair trade. These include things like gender equity, transparency of supply chains, and fair pay.
Founded in the 1980s, the WFTO predates Fairtrade certification, but Abena Fianu believes they represent two parts of the same mission: “With the 10 principles of fair trade, you can gain fair trade status for your whole organisation, rather than just that little bit of it, so I think they absolutely do work together.”
In the 30 years since the certification launched, the landscape has shifted. A plethora of other checkmarks, such as Rainforest Alliance, Fair for Life and B Corp status are now well established. Even Green and Black’s, the original Fairtrade chocolate bar, launched a non-certified product in 2017.
For Andrei Lussmann, founder of the sustainable dining chain Lussmanns Sustainable Kitchen, it’s a sign of a more nuanced understanding of equity and supply chains. “Lots of small coffee roasters have sprung up and said: ‘Right, we actually want to use [Fairtrade] as our benchmark [but] we want to pivot to a better standard and a more personal relationship with a particular farmer.” At the same time, he says the Fairtrade checkmark continues to be a core marker for customers.
For Chawla, it’s this trust that is key to the certification’s future. “People haven’t heard of Cottsbury, but they have heard of Fairtrade. We [now] know so much, so why not about our clothes? Where is the cotton grown? How is it being grown? Where is the factory that makes my product? Gen Z think very differently: they want to know all these things. For them, it’s obvious. It’s natural.”
Main image: A cocoa farmer at ECOOKIM co-operative, Ivory Coast. Credit: Shared Interest
