CR spoke with the Fairtrade Foundation

Barbara Crowther

Fair-trade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. Sarah J spoke with Barbara Crowther, Director of Policy and Communications for the Fairtrade Foundation to find out about their new products and how fair trade is making a life changing difference to farmers around the world.

Sarah J: Can you give us a quick overview of the work that you do at the Fair-trade Foundation?

Barbara: Yes. Whenever you see a product carrying the fair trade mark which is that little blue, green, black and white mark on coffee, tea and bananas, you know that the producers of those products have been paid a fair price and a little bit extra so that they can invest in improving their lives. That might be improving the roads, schools or the health clinics, or even improving the way that they're farming.

The way that we can give that assurance to consumers is because we at the Fair-trade Foundation, we're part of an international system that has set a whole set of rules around the producers, but also the companies, around paying fair prices. We're out there checking and auditing that the companies are indeed passing on additional benefits back to the farmers and workers that they're buying their goods from.

We sit in the middle as an independent charity and we check that people are doing the right thing and playing fair by the farmers.

Sarah J: What kind of impact is fair trade selling having on the farmers?

A school bus in St Vincent purchased with Fairtrade premiums from banana sales, so that children in the rural areas who had passed exams to go to secondary school could actually get to school

Barbara: The impact obviously depends on how much they've been able to sell on fair trade terms. If you've got 100 farmers all growing coffee, you need to then find buyers who are willing to pay you those fair prices. In some cases, farmers might only be selling about 5% of what they grow into the fair trade market. In some cases they might be selling 75%. The impact will vary from one group to another.

Where they have been able to sell on fair trade terms, it's been quite incredible how even relatively small amounts of money have made a huge difference. I was out in West Africa a few months ago visiting cocoa farmers; they supply big chocolate brands and they told me that before fair trade about 35 farmers a year in their co-operative alone used to die from preventable illnesses and infections, things that were simple medical complaints, because they haven't been able to get those farmers treated and they haven't been able to get them to a hospital in time. What they've done is invest their fair trade premiums and invested in building a health clinic. They pay for a full time doctor and they bought an ambulance so that the most serious cases if necessary can be taken from their clinic to the hospital. Also they can go out into the rural areas and bring people to the clinic. With the ambulance, they now think they're saving 30 to 35 lives a year just from selling quite a small amount of cocoa on fair trade terms.

Sarah J: So purchasing fair trade goods actually can save lives?

Barbara: Literally. A lot of the farmers will invest in things like education for their children. They see that as really important. One of the things they say is that fair trade isn't going to change my life overnight, but if my children can get the education that I didn't get, then they're going to have so many more choices in life than I've had here, growing bananas or sugar. If they can get through secondary education, not just primary education, or even go on to university, or train as a lawyer or a doctor, then their prospects are much better.

Sarah J: Tell me about some of the new products on the fair trade range.

Barbara: There are some great new things out there. We've got the first fair trade baked beans for example; they're organic and they're actually white kidney beans. Normally baked beans are quite small haricot beans; these are slightly larger but they taste just the same. They're currently in Waitrose and a lot of Whole Food shops, that's Geo organic baked beans. There's also a company called Easybean that's developing little snack pots using those beans. They come from Outer Mongolia.

Kavokiva clinic

There are also raisins from Afghanistan. Obviously Afghanistan is massively in the news all the time and the question is, how are small scale farmers affected by the ongoing conflict? We've been able to work with a company called Tropical Whole Foods who are working out in Afghanistan with grape farmers, who then turn their grapes to raisins and we've now got the first fair trade raisins coming in from Afghanistan. I think that's really important. How do people rebuild their lives after a conflict? Can fair trade be part of a whole set of measures that will help create the economic underpinning of a more peaceful future for the Afghan people? That's really exciting.

Often there are things like sugar, honey, spices or cocoa butter that have gone into chocolate, or gone into other products that are now going into cosmetics and beauty products. Boots have now got a whole range of beauty products; things like shower gels and body butters and moisturisers that use fair trade ingredients. There are loads of fantastic organic and natural ingredient companies that are offering fair trade cosmetics. That's a really growing area for us as well.