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FAIR TRADE
"Fair trade" is a system that connects producers as directly
as possible with consumers while incorporating principles of economic and
social justice and environmental sustainability. Fair Trade
organizations presently import products from approximately 800 trading
partners in 45 different countries. They are coordinated
internationally for both certification, monitoring and labeling.
Fair Trade certification testifies that:
- The producers receive a just price for their work and a portion of the
price in advance so they do not have to enter into debt to cover start-up
expenses.
- The producers use environmentally sustainable agricultural practices.
- The collectives or cooperatives are democratically operated within their
cultural framework.
Of crucial importance to the development of the Fair Trade system is
the development of consistent markets for the products. Consumers in
industrialized countries constitute their major market. When
consumers make their purchases through Fair Trade, they play an important
role in bringing about economic justice.
To purchase fair trade coffee,
tea or crafts or for more information, please contact
us.
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FREE TRADE
"Free trade" can be defined as reducing and eliminating tariffs
on imported goods, and eliminating any discriminating strictures on the
operation of foreign companies. This is also presently being applied
in the World Trade Organization to trade in services, under the General
Agreement on Trade in Services.
Proponents of free trade argue that this creates a "level playing
field" because products and services can then be sold at the price
set by the producer, no matter what the producer's country.
Competition would be open. Everyone is treated "fairly."
The reality is far from fair. Economically impoverished
countries, many of them former exploited colonies, do not have the
equivalent economic or political resources to compete in selling price
with the products of highly developed and highly subsidized Western
businesses, especially in agriculture.
Yet they have to be a part of the World Trade Organization and other trade
agreements in order to function within the globalized economy.
"Liberalizing" their trade by eliminating tariffs and opening
their assets to foreign investment is a major condition for loans
from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. At the same time,
the US, the European Union and Japan have retained their own high
subsidies in support of their major industries.
The result is the decimation of the agricultural and small business
sectors in already impoverished countries, and their growing dependence on
imported products and food, and the foreign companies that market
them. Benefits accrue to the politically or economically powerful
local elites, and the subsidiaries of large corporations functioning
within their geographical area.
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