We are happy to see our partners and members being active in the Fair Trade community and to support the various initiatives they found and support. Let us know if you have any actions you would like to see featured here.

 

The Fair Trade Advocacy Office: For Action- Anti-UTPs Coallition

This July the Commission launched a public consultation and online questionnaire on its Initiative to Improve the Food Supply Chain, in particular in regards to fighting Unfair Trading Practices. Please do- and encourage your colleagues and allies to- respond to the questionnaire as we are guessing that submitting a high volume of replies will be needed at this point to demonstrate public support. The deadline for input is 17 November 2017.

To improve this assessment the EC needs quantitative data for cross-border UTP cases in the EU (to convince the Secretariat General that EU action is needed), Practical real-life-examples of how the different UTPs descripted in the AMTF report affect producers (to make cases more tangible), and Evidence for ripple effect that UTP pressure on processors (from retailers) ends up on producers. It would be really helpful for any real-life examples to take the form of infoboxes to illustrate the impact as apparently that was a big plus in the e-commerce impact assessment.

Please do assess if you have already evidence and data available that fall in these categories and/or what you could collect through your organisation or networks by the end of the year.

For more information, including example responses by FTAO, please contact Peter Möhringer.

-Peter Möhringer, FTAO (edited by Eros Shreve)

 

Oxfam-Magasins du Monde Crowdfunding for a Fair Textile Supply Chain

In the framework of its 2017/18 campaign « Slow Fashion », OMM recently launched its first crowdfunding. Its objective is to create a new range of fair trade and organic t-shirts, while supporting its Indian supplier Mila. This partner is a small fair trade organization (10 employees) recently created (2012), able to supply knitted garments of high (social) quality and in small volumes. More particularly, it offers a transparent and traceable FT supply chain, while offering its workers very good wages. The amount collected during this crowdfunding (lasting until end November) will be used to buy new sewing machines, which will improve working conditions and increase Mila’s production capacities. It has been quite successful so far since more than ¾ of the amount targeted (20.000€) has been collected, coming from more than 250 donors.

More info on www.omdm.be/crowdfunding (beware, shipping costs for pledges only covered in Benelux and France).

-Patrick Veillard, Oxfam-Magasins du Monde (OMM)

 

Artisans du Monde: Salade de Fruits (pas si) Jolie Jolie…

Conventional Agriculture: a machine to produce inequalities

In the world economy, competition between workers provokes a social and environmental dumping, the consequences of which are tragic for both mankind and the planet. The tropical fruits (bananas, oranges, pineapples, mangos, etc.) industry is the perfect example: marked by an industrial production model, it has an environmental and social impact with farmers as the main victims. In this competition, the adjustable variables have become the working conditions, the salaries, and the environmental impact. This is underlined by the fact that  that agriculture employs the second most people in the world behind the service industry.

The tropic fruits channels: a symbol

The international channels for tropic fruits were developed in the colonial system. Some actors control the entire supply chain and force the farmers to work in poor conditions, lowering the cost of production as much as possible, while raising the price as high as they can. Profiting from these situations which are insecure for the producers (migrants, women, children, the illiterate), they impose mass productions with chemical products, putting the works, the environment, and the population in danger.

Fair Trade: a solution

The Fair Trade channels support producers who prioritize the raw materials and respect human rights. These channels offer a concrete alternative and militant activism for decent work. They make it possible to guarantee decent work conditions, and as such assuring respect for human rights and the environment.

Explore the subject thanks to our digital path (released in partnership with Une Seule Planète) by clicking here.

See the original text and what you can do to help here.

–Artisans du Monde (translation by Eros Shreve)