Fair Trade - From the Global Village to the Home Front

National Farmers Union Convention, November 23, 2007, London, Ontario
by Reg Phelan

It's wonderful that the town of Wolfville has embraced the concept of Fair Trade and demonstrated that it can be applied locally. It shows the way Canadians can help build a future for producers in this country and around the world.

At last year's convention, we had two producers from the Islands of Dominica and St. Vincent talk about how they helped to reshape agriculture through Fair Trade and they challenged us to begin working on a similar process.

Fair Trade, Organic production and buy-local movements represent important challenges to the global agri-food system. They are all increasing rapidly with many new markets. Although small in overall market share, the true significance I feel lies in the challenges they raise to the exploitative agri-food system. These movements critique conventional agriculture production and consumption patterns and seek to create a more sustainable food system. They seek to reveal more fully the conditions of production.

The National Farmers Union (NFU) over the years has provided considerable energy in supporting government-backed orderly marketing and single desk selling as a way for producers to get equitable share. The possibility of these efforts taking shape has been severely curtailed by Free Trade agreements. These deny the possibility for any new orderly marketing or supply management programs backed by government.

The organic and Fair Trade movements are backed by strong transnational non-government organizations (for example, FLO, Fair Trade Labelling Organization). Both movements have created alternative markets for labelled products that simultaneously parallel and challenge the conventional food system. Since these labelling efforts are strictly voluntary and do not discriminate by country of origin, they are not considered by world trade organizations (WTO) to be barriers to trade violation and international trade agreements.

In the past two decades, a number of us organic producers in the Maritimes have attempted to build on the work NFU has done in promoting single desk marketing. We are working through a cooperative marketing, SeaSpray Atlantic, to sell organic produce and livestock. Major buyers, such as Sobey's, Co-op Atlantic, and Superstore, place their orders with SeaSpray. The orders are filled by SeaSpray members according to an agreed upon plan that ensures equitable delivery. Producers all receive a price that has been negotiated earlier. We also help supply each other with products for retail at local Farmers Markets. One of these markets is actually in Bob's town of Wolfville. Our members also supply CSA's in the region to augment what they have available for their customers. We used to ship considerable product out of the Atlantic region to Central Canada and Eastern USA. We are doing less of this these days.

It's becoming harder to deal with the conventional distribution systems that have bought out and taken over smaller organic distribution networks. This has been made possible in part because organic certification is largely silent about the conditions beyond the point of production. Now WalMart has announced that they intend to be the price-setter in the organic market. We know this can only mean downward pressure on prices that producers will receive. This sends shivers to us as producers.

To avoid being absorbed by corporations and their conventional trade practices, we need alternative trade movements that build new and tighter links between producers and consumers, North and South. Our brothers and sisters in the South are showing us possible ways this can happen. It is wonderful that the NFU has fostered relationships with producers in the South over the recent decades. I was fortunate to be part of this as have many in this room. Last year, it was uplifting to have two brothers from the South who previously spent time in Canada with NFU members come back and with their energy, motivate us to consider the possibilities of working together with Fair Trade model.

The re-embedding of agriculture production will require not just alternate products but alternate marketing links, building alternate networks of solidarity between producers and consumers to encourage the participation of smaller producers. Emphasis on capacity-building is needed. Producers can increase their control over their own future, have a fair and just return for their work, and have continuity of income and decent working and living conditions. Fair Trade requires that production adheres to a set of strict social as well as more limited environmental conditions. Only democratically organized associations of small growers or democratically independent unions can be registered for Fair Trade production.

The many Fair Trade groups in the Caribbean each have between thirty to fifty farmers that meet on a regular basis. A quota is allocated to each group and they decide how it gets filled among themselves. All members are required to attend meetings and decision-making needs to be transparent. These groups have become the movers in their communities and 1 % of their sales goes to community projects. It is a great, uplifting, empowering process for farmers who had previously suffered a severe blow from the WTO rulings that resulted in many people leaving agriculture. One of the significant changes is that about 60% of the farms are now managed by women. Farmers now have a different profile in the community. When the media covers an event like a new school opening where Fair Trade farmers have put considerable dollars into the construction, other people are wondering what is going on. They thought farmers were losing money and going out of business, but here they see the same farmers helping to build schools. In the small island of St Vincent with a population of 100,000, Fair Trade farmers are putting one million dollars each year into such projects.

The organization that does the negotiating with FLO is WINFA, the Windward Islands Farmers Association. It takes a strong farm organization to carry out these negotiations in the face of the power and dominance of multi-national corporations. There is the risk that the space created for alternative trade will be subverted by profit-seeking corporations, many of which are trying their legitimacy by adopting the rhetoric of environmental and social responsibility. Typically this proves to be little more than a corporate face-lift.

I think the NFU is the organization in Canada that would be capable of fulfilling the role of negotiating the conditions of Fair Trade. We have many longstanding attributes that would help in the process: The NFU is the main proponent of orderly marketing in this country; recently, the key organization in defending the Canadian Wheat Board, has farmers all across this country including many who are involved in local marketing and organic production, has a long history of being involved at the international level; for many years has had a youth exchange program with members of WINFA; involvement with La Via Campesina since its inception in the early nineties.

I think this could be a moment of opportunity for us. There is an increased, new awareness for many people of what is happening in our food system. The call for food sovereignty, security and sustainability can and need to be priority items for our membership.