Fairtrade

What is this Fair Trade Movement all about? It is a movement that offers disadvantaged people the opportunity to move out of extreme poverty by giving them equitable access to consumers they cannot reach on their own. Through its Okoa cooperatives, Trade Justice Mission helps impoverished and marginalized women access these consumers. We hope you will join us on this road to economic justice. Generally, a product cannot ethically be designated a “Fair Trade” product unless the following eight practices occur:

  1. Disadvantaged producers form a co-op that is paid a minimum product price based on country specific living wage. This minimum price allows the product to be produced in a socially just and environmentally sound manner;
  2. The co-op receives a social premium [often 10% of the price of the goods sold]. The co-op then votes on how to spend the social premium. This practice allows co-op members and their families to move out of subsistence poverty through trade rather than aid;
  3. Fair Trade importers contract directly with the co-ops thereby eliminating middlemen who collude to limit competition and profit margins;
  4. Fair Trade importers enter transparent and long-term partnerships with the co-ops so that long term planning and investments in new technology can occur;
  5. Fair Trade importers provide or facilitate credit and/or pre-payment to smooth the co-op members’ income streams and minimize the impact of predatory lenders and corrupt governments;
  6. Fair Trade importers provide co-op members market information necessary to respond to northern hemisphere’s market movements and trends;
  7. Democratically organized co-ops allow one-vote systems that ensure social premiums fund projects that benefit all co-op members; and
  8. Fair labor practices are imposed that prohibit child and slave labor while allowing unionization. How large is the Fair Trade market? It is large and growing exponentially. Consumers worldwide spent a $2.21 billion on Fair Trade Certified products in 2006 - a 41 percent increase from 2005.

What kinds of consumers are buying these products in the US? They go by many names: Cultural Creatives, Ethical Consumers, Values Driven Consumers, and/or LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability) consumers (collectively referred to as "Ethical Consumers"). Ethical consumers share values and lifestyles – not demographics or income. Those values include nature, authenticity, spirituality, peace, relationships, feminism, social justice, and social responsibility.

Ethical Consumers currently make up 26% of the US population – approximately 50 million. The New York Times identified the Ethical Consumer market as "the biggest market you never heard of." And, the United States "is emerging as potentially the most important national [Fair Trade] market."