USFT MidAtlantic NorthEast Convergence Report

With some of the largest multinational corporations in the world like Nestle, McDonalds, and Walmart getting into fair trade, the fair trade movement is at a crossroads. Pioneers who have built the movement from the ground up need to question whether or not this shift in actors is something to be celebrated or spurned. In attending the United Students for Fair Trade (USFT)’s convergence in Washington D.C., my goal was to give students a perspective on what it is like to work within fair trade, and to get them to think through issues associated with mainstreaming.  As one of the largest grassroots bases in fair trade, and with nothing to lose but their belief in the movement, students can be a real force in maintaining the integrity of fair trade.

The USFT is an association of student groups across the U.S. working on spreading fair trade on their campuses.  As students distributed across the whole of the United States, they have a huge impact in building the movement, and in influencing how other students, and ultimately entire communities, get to know and view fair trade.

 Each group organizes outreach activities at their schools aimed at raising awareness and developing fair trade purchasing policies. These include free tastings, teach-ins, movie screenings, fair trade fairs, panel discussions, and increasing fair trade options for coffee, tea, and chocolate on campus.  They are planning on putting efforts in increasing the distribution of fair trade bananas, and putting a fair trade university policy in place. Every year, all of these individual groups get together to discuss the logistics of their efforts, network together, deepen their knowledge, and boost their motivation.

Instead of one national convergence, this year they decided to have three regional convergences in different parts of the country, allowing for wider overall participation. The first regional convergence, the MidAtlantic-NorthEast regional gathering, took place in Washington D.C., political hub of the US.  In a parish house room across from the IMF and the World Bank, 70 or so students and fair trade allies sat together to discuss what values and ideas (see my notes on that discussion) first drew them to the movement.

Some of the attendees were relative old hands, having been involved in fair trade grassroots organizing for years.  There were also many newly minted fair traders, those who did not yet understand all the subtleties and challenges the movement faces, but who were drawn to its inherent values of equity, partnership, transparency, and democracy. 

One of the major themes of the weekend was anti-oppression, as the organizers asked attendees to take the time to think and reflect upon what power and privilege meant to them, and how these forms of oppression can pervade one’s life without one ever being aware of them. Examples as simple as being careful to not alienate new group members by explaining jargon and acronyms were given. These students are incredibly mindful of themselves, making sure that their everyday actions embody the values they are promoting. They clearly take the values of fair trade to heart.

I asked them to turn some of that spotlight onto fair trade itself.  I asked them if they thought fair trade is coherent with these values of equity and anti-oppression. With two FLO certified products sitting on the same shelf, one from a large corporation for whom fair trade represents 3% of their sales, and the other from a company wholly dedicated to the movement, as is the case with our members, fair trade promoters need to decide if they want to ask consumers to make a distinction between the two.

The problem with this lies in how to communicate the difference between two products with the same logo, without creating skepticism as to what the words fair trade mean. The question becomes even more complicated when one tries to discuss how a company that does not carry the logo can claim to be 100% fair trade, and more fair than someone who does. When introducing an individual to fair trade for the first time, it is fairly difficult to talk intelligently about these issues without putting them off fair trade altogether.

Through several discussion and workshops, I tried to get these students to address these questions, and decide if and how they wanted to tackle them. As promoters, it is quite important for them to feel that they can stand behind fair trade 100%.   The first workshop I attended was run by Counter Culture Coffee, ironically identified as run by Cooperative Coffees in the weekend booklet (my notes on that workshop). It focused on the power of transparency and knowledge in fair trade. Starting with an exercise using marbles where participants were asked to sell the marble they had gotten to others, we learned how important it is to know your product well in order to sell it successfully. The second was a Fair Trade 101 (my notes on that workshop), where students talked about practical methods they can use to introduce other students to fair trade on their campuses.

At the end of the weekend I ran a discussion on the mainstreaming of fair trade, and what that means. I presented the letter sent out by the Coordinadora Nacional de Pequenos Productores de Comercio Justo de Peru, titled “Fair Trade is in Danger! Fair Trade with Big Companies? Or with Small Farmer’s Organizations” that outlined their disbelief that FLO had certified a large exporter who has historically caused many problems of oppression in the region. I wanted to give the students a concrete example of where fair trade is heading, and the effects it will have on small-scale producer cooperatives, the intended beneficiaries of the fair trade. This opened up a lot of dialogue about fair trade, the role of cooperatives, and the effects of plantations and multinationals on small scale farmers. I believe it got them thinking seriously about fair trade, about the role that they can and should play within the movement, in demanding that higher standards be used.

Throughout the weekend however, I saw that some students felt quite hesitant in embarking on this kind of mission. First of all, most of the students present were pretty new to fair trade themselves. Second, their major challenge and work at the moment is more about creating initial awareness of fair trade among their student population. They are not yet asking their peers to be more exacting in their fair trade purchases, they are trying to get them to make their very first fair trade purchase.

There might be a way of presenting fair trade that can make it clear in the mind of a consumer from the start: place it within the wider context of greater conscious consuming, where when one buys something, one makes sure they are aware of where it comes from, and that it is in step with their values. So far, when people have spoken about fair trade, they have focused on the label, and the fair price it guarantees. Clearly, fair trade is about a lot more than that. By looking at the values that fair trade represents--partnership, equity, transparency, and respect--consumers can support the companies that stand for, and practice, these same values.  This way, it is much easier to distinguish between a Sam’s Club fair trade, and a fair trade pioneer’s, bag of coffee. As consumers in this market driven society, our choices have a lot of power.  It is a privilege that we should not ignore, but instead use to its full potential.

Fair trade has worked to provide an alternative to the current neo-liberal economic paradigm that dominates our globalized world. Fair trade proves through example that people on opposite ends of a supply chain can work in equal partnership and maintain long lasting work relationships. In mainstreaming fair trade, FLO and its labeling initiatives have argued that they are increasing the reach and breadth of fair trade, and are thus improving the overall benefit to producers.  However, one needs to question whether helping multinationals improve their corporate image through nominal fair trade use is the best path forward.

I left the convergence feeling cautiously optimistic that these students would realize the power that they have in shaping the future of fair trade, in ensuring that it continues to embody the values that they expect of themselves, and hope to promote for the future.