Fairtrade

last updated on: 23rd Nov 2010

Fair trade means that the people who grow or make what we buy get a fair price and fair conditions.

Fairtrade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay sustainable prices (which must never fall lower than the market price), Fairtrade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives. Fairtrade standards comprise both minimum social, economic and environmental requirements, which producers must meet to be certified, plus progress requirements that encourage continuous improvement to develop farmers’ organisations or the situation of estate workers.

What the producers say 

Lucy Manusah is a cocoa farmer in Ghana. She grows the quality cocoa we enjoy eating in Divine and dubble chocolate bars

”Now … I can afford the fees to send my children to school. We used to collect our water from a stream that is 3 miles walk away… - the water was very bad, our children suffered from diarrhoea. …Now we have a well for clean water paid by fairtrade.

Manjula is an Embroidery worker in India.

“It helps me in educating my children…it has created in me a kind of freedom, there is no need for me to extend my hand and ask for help and bow down before others. It has given me independence.”

Bernardo Jaen is a Pineapple farmer in Costa Rica.

“Our fruit tastes great, but in the fairtrade system it’s not enough just to produce quality. This fruit is also about the way it’s produced. It’s about the environment. It’s about a fair system.”

Church Action Guide 2010
Church Reflections and Prayers 2010
Fairtrade wine newsletter Lent 2009