A Belgian Fair Trade platform : stronger together!

The Belgian Fair Trade Federation (BFTF) is a network of fifteen Fair Trade actors in Belgium, mainly active in Wallonia and in Brussels. Some of them are non-governmental, or non-profit organisations with small projects in the South and awareness-raising organisations in the North. Others are small companies which import, transform and/or distribute Fair Trade products. And others are beautiful shops specialised in Fair Trade and organic products. Some of these actors sell food or non-food products exclusively, others have both.

In one word BFTF members all practice different activities. They also all have one common goal: promoting Fair Trade in Belgium. In 2010 this goal led them to gather around one common project: the creation of a platform, BFTF.

Various activities to improve awareness of Fair Trade

BFTF was founded to promote Fair Trade in Belgium but also to give the opportunity to its members to gather and to empower their activities. Over the years BFTF has thus become the interlocutor representing the sector in Belgium. Today we have many different activities going from services to our members to awareness-raising of Belgian citizens.

Trainings are organised for our members. We also organise gatherings to simply bring together our members and to foster exchanges about their different practices. Sometimes these gatherings lead to common projects. Last year, for instance, all together we made a small leaflet to illustrate Fair Trade’s qualities, diversity and values. This leaflet was handed out to over 10.000 persons. Through this action, we expected to raise awareness and to invite people to consider the possibility of consuming differently and respectfully for the producers and the environment.

This project leads us to the second part of activity: the promotion of Fair Trade to Belgian citizens through different means: information, communication, awareness-raising… We invite citizens to more awareness about unfair practices and to act and go for Fair Trade.

New Challenges for 2015

Founded in 2009, we will celebrate our fifth anniversary in October. A good moment to launch new challenges. Furthermore, Fair Trade has evolved these last years. In fact we see more and more European fair initiatives. Nowadays, in our countries, as in every other, producers are victims of the existing agricultural model. They also need to be given a fair price for their work and their products. Therefore, in 2015, BFTF will open itself to new members, called the “local fair trade actors”.

As new member of WFTO, we hope we’ll have the opportunity to meet you, to get to know your activity and to imagine possible future collaboration with you!

Fair Monkey

Fair Monkey is a cooperative economic association with an aim to secure better living conditions for mainly women producers from small co-operatives in Guatemala, Nepal and South Africa. Established 2006 in Sweden, we import and sell Fair Trade products to about 90 shops in Sweden and in some neighboring countries.  A cooperative economic association is ideal, with its democratic approach to ownership, and it makes perfect sense when cooperating with our artisans and producers, since they often are organized in the same way. The products include a range of beautiful and contemporary jewellery and accessories which are all handmade and purchased directly from our producers and artisans. With this, opportunities are created for these amazing artisans to improve living conditions for themselves and their families with the steady income that the handicraft gives, while they proudly share their craftsmanship with the world. To build common trading conditions and simultaneously increase the producers’ craft-pride and self-esteem is an important part of our work.

Fair Monkey places great emphasis on knowledge about product development and quality assurance, trying to find products with a clear view of Maya culture, design and technology, (the backstrap loom in particular). This is especially important for maintaining traditional knowledge and traditions of craftsmanship, which otherwise could easily disappear when it’s not generating any income for the work done. Trade is a great way to spread knowledge about the artisans living conditions and highlight the importance of Fair Trade. Part of Fair Monkeys operations, except for the import and wholesales, is giving lectures about the producer’s situation, and what Fair Trade in reality has meant to them.    

Fair Monkey

Fair Monkey is a cooperative economic association with an aim to secure better living conditions for mainly women producers from small co-operatives in Guatemala, Nepal and South Africa. Established 2006 in Sweden, we import and sell Fair Trade products to about 90 shops in Sweden and in some neighboring countries.  A cooperative economic association is ideal, with its democratic approach to ownership, and it makes perfect sense when cooperating with our artisans and producers, since they often are organized in the same way.

The products include a range of beautiful and contemporary jewellery and accessories which are all handmade and purchased directly from our producers and artisans. With this, opportunities are created for these amazing artisans to improve living conditions for themselves and their families with the steady income that the handicraft gives, while they proudly share their craftsmanship with the world. To build common trading conditions and simultaneously increase the producers’ craft-pride and self-esteem is an important part of our work.

Fair Monkey places great emphasis on knowledge about product development and quality assurance, trying to find products with a clear view of Maya culture, design and technology, (the backstrap loom in particular). This is especially important for maintaining traditional knowledge and traditions of craftsmanship, which otherwise could easily disappear when it’s not generating any income for the work done. Trade is a great way to spread knowledge about the artisans living conditions and highlight the importance of Fair Trade. Part of Fair Monkeys operations, except for the import and wholesales, is giving lectures about the producer’s situation, and what Fair Trade in reality has meant to them.    

Since its start in 1995, La Maison Afrique, a Fair Trade organization, supports and cooperates with artisans in Madagascar. Raison d’être is summarized in the logo: “Arts & Crafts from Madagascar with respect for nature, people and tradition. FAIR TRADE”.

The materials used are local, natural, or recycled. Production is small scale and environmentally friendly. The goods is shipped by sea from Madagascar to Sweden. The artisans are supported with interest free loans, export management, market information and regular orders within the context of a long term commitment. . The product range includes hats, bags, gifts and interior. Flagship products are the hats with matching bags. They will be exhibited at Formex, Stockholm and Formland, Herning.  

During 2014, a new website was created:http://www.la-maison-afrique.se/en/

La Maison Afrique FAIR TRADE became a member of WFTO (then IFAT) in 2002 and was one of the founding members of WFTO-Europe.

All are getting ready for the second World Fair Trade Week, to take place in Milan (Italy), from 23-31 May 2015.

Co-organised by WFTO and AGICES (the Italian General Assembly of Fair Trade Organisations), the 2015 WFTWeek will include several events in its programme. One of the main events is the WFTO 13th Biennial Conference, scheduled for 24-27 May. It will be followed by the Milano Fair City exhibition (an international fair for fair traders and other social economy actors), on 28-31 May. Alongside are being planned the 5th Fair Trade International Symposium, a Fair Trade fashion show, a Fair Trade cooking show, and many other national and local events.

Registration for the WFTO Biennial Conference is now open, until end April 2015. You find more details here. Registrations after 1 March will pay a late fee.

You can also already register for a stand at the international fair Milano Fair City here.  Registration for accomodation during theMilano Fair City is also open here.

For more details and updates on the activities of World Fair Trade Week, visit www.WorldFairTradeWeek.org.

Brussels, 18 November 2014 – Have you ever wondered how come those local apples in season remain more expensive than bananas all year long? Why do poor farmers get poorer just as the international price of their products rise non-stop? Why is environmental damage increasing even as large companies prove they are implementing sustainability programmes? With city dwellers increasing and rural population dwindling, who will produce the food the hungry urbanites will demand?

The new study opens the door to the answers. “Who’s got the power? Tackling imbalances in agricultural supply chains”, released today in Brussels by the Fair Trade movement[1] reveals how the growing integration –and concentration of power- in the supply chain of agricultural products is having a serious effect not only on producers far away from the supermarket shelves, but all along the supply chain, the environment and onto the choices available to consumers. Unfair trading practices (UTPs)[2] appear, and they are not accidental but structural.

Olivier De Schutter, co-chair of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, says in the foreword to the study that “the need to improve the governance of food systems, in order to avoid instances of excessive domination by a small number of major agrifood companies, is hardly ever referred to in international summits that seek to provide answers to the challenges of hunger and malnutrition. This report helps to fill that gap”.

The study identifies common patterns of concentration involving the main elements of the supply chain, the one exerting pressure on the other all the way down to the producers. The more these elements are integrated with one another, the stronger is the pressure exerted onto the next link in the supply chain:

1. Consumers
2. Retailers (supermarket chains)
3. Branded products manufacturers
4. Traders of produce
5. Processors/Refiners
6. Producers/Farmers
7. Input producers (seeds, fertilizers, etc.)

In sheer size, the Consumers (7 billion) and the Producers/Farmers (2.5 billion) are by far the most numerous. However, most of the value share of the transaction (up to 86%) stays with numbers two to five. But trying to present the problem as one between consumers on one side, and farmers and workers on the other, is meaningless. The degradation of the trading and living conditions of farmers and workers, whether inside or outside Europe, creates important risks of unavailability and unaffordability of products for consumers in the midterm, reducing their welfare in the end.

Addressing concretely the global nature of the problem and its consequences, the study emits no less than 16 practical recommendations to policy-makers, businesses and workers all over the world. The European Union has a clear responsibility to prevent and punish UTPs, considering the superior purchase power of its 550 million inhabitants, as well as the numerous trade agreements it has with produce exporting countries. Transactions do not occur in a legal vacuum but national legislation needs to be adapted to counter the power concentration trend, and it is clear that no solution will be found in isolation, which is why the study includes action proposals to all seven links of the supply chain as well as to multilateral instances such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

In order to address and resolve the issues the study recommends actions to adopt a comprehensive strategy based on:

• A vision of consumer welfare that goes beyond purchasing power and recalls its inherent link with farmers’ and workers’ welfare.
• Measures to rebalance business power in agricultural chains in the short term, currently the law of the strongest has the upper hand.
• Mechanisms to enhance transparency in agricultural chains so that stakeholders can better identify the risks of abuse of buyer power and unfair trading practices.
• A renewed European competition policy framework capable of better regulating such abuses.
• Enforcement mechanisms to stop Unfair Trading Practices (UTPs) within food supply chains serving the EU market, with authorities able to investigate claims and punish abuses.
• Initiatives to promote and widely spread fair trading practices in the mid to long run.

*END*

Notes to Editors:

1. The presentation and debate of the findings of the report is scheduled for 18 November 2014 at 12.30 at the European Parliament, please consult details at: www.fairtrade-advocacy.org
2. Please find attached and via the following links the Abstract and the Full versions of the study by BASIC (Bureau d’Analyse Sociétale pour une Information Citoyenne) titled “Who’s got the power? Tackling imbalances in agricultural supply chains”, November 2014. Available at www.fairtrade-advocacy.org/power
3. To book interviews with the authors of the report or the experts from the commissioning organizations, please contact Peter Möhringer at moehringer@fairtrade-advocacy.org, mobile: +32 485 76 23 81).
4. For background information about the campaigns against UTPs organized by the Fair Trade movement members, please see compilation in PDF attached.
5. For more information about the organizations commissioning this study, please follow these links: Fairtrade Internationalwww.fairtrade.net; World Fair Trade Organization www.wfto.com; Fair Trade Advocacy Office www.fairtrade-advocacy.org; Traidcraft www.traidcraft.org.uk; Plate-forme pour le Commerce Equitable www.commercequitable.org; Fair Trade Germanywww.fairtrade-deutschland.de

Mifuko means pocket in the Swahili.

Mifuko Ltd. is a Finnish design company, which co-operates with several women self-help group and small artisan workshops in Kenya. Mifuko´s products include jewellery, sandals and bags. Company was founded by Minna Impiö and Mari Martikainen in 2009. Both are graduates of the University of Industrial Art and Design, Helsinki.

Mifuko works on Helsinki-Nairobi-axis. While the designs are done by Finnish artists they are inspired by the colors, textures and vibrancy of Africa.  Every product is designed to utilize traditional craftsmanship and techniques, as well as locally available materials. MIfuko supports talented Kenyan artisans and provides them with regular income. Mifuko wont drive the production scale in cost of the trusted relationship with all the artisans. Beyond giving the designs a Scandinavian twist, we try not to interfere with the creativity and techniques of our chosen artisans. We have close working relationships with all our sub-contractors and actively assist them in developing their businesses. It’s a two street, as we pass on our own knowledge and learn from them about their traditional techniques.

To promote Kenyan artisans Mifuko has founded association called Mifuko Trust.

The need for Mifuko Trust surfaced in Kenya, where local artisans often ask us to assist in the acquisition of various tools, know-how and increasing children’s school fees payment. Mifuko Trust’s aim is to promote the employment of artisans and develop their entrepreneurial skills in Kenya.

MIfuko has been awarded with the Finnish Social Enterprise label, this means that Mifuko qualifies in the three requirements: promoting social welfare through its business, using most of the profits to benefit society, and operating transparently. In addition to concentrating on fair treatment of its suppliers, the company maximises its use of recycled materials.

Mifuko has an international retailer network of more than 30 shops on four continents.

Name: Mifuko

Head Office: Helsinki, Finland

Date of foundation: 2009

Website: http://www.mifuko.fi/

The Fair Trade movement has always recognised the importance of the environmental impact of humans’ activities. This is stressed in one of the 10 Fair Trade Principles by which WFTO makes sure that its member organisations are following environmental standards in their day to day work.

According to Principle Ten:

“Organizations which produce Fair Trade products maximize the use of raw materials from sustainably managed sources in their ranges, buying locally when possible. They use production technologies that seek to reduce energy consumption and where possible use renewable energy technologies that minimize greenhouse gas emissions. They seek to minimize the impact of their waste stream on the environment. Fair Trade agricultural commodity producers minimize their environmental impacts, by using organic or low pesticide use production methods wherever possible.

Buyers and importers of Fair Trade products give priority to buying products made from raw materials that originate from sustainably managed sources, and have the least overall impact on the environment.

All organizations use recycled or easily biodegradable materials for packing to the extent possible, and goods are dispatched by sea wherever possible”.

Environmental issues and the consequences of climate change are, undoubtedly, one of the biggest challenges of our era.

Peoples Climate March in NYC – Photo credit: Robert van Waarden

The last 19^th of August was Earth Overshoot Day, the day when humanity exhausted all the natural resources available for the year, in other words, humanity’s annual demand on the natural world has exceeded what the Earth can renew in a year since the 1970s (WWF).

In the last weeks, climate change has been in the spotlight. People’s Climate March and the UN Climate Summit 2014 caught citizens’ and politicians’ attention on the issue and raised the urgency for a call to action. It was the first time the world has seen such a large mobilisation for this important issue. Climate change is a global problem and regional measures are therefore not enough, what is needed are global solutions and fast actions before irreversible consequence can lead to catastrophic outcomes.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, developing countries are and will remain the most affected by the consequences that Climate Change has on our planet, experiencing, among others, severe droughts in drier areas, and stronger cyclones and unpredictable rains in tropical regions (The Guardian).

The last 10^th of September during the seminar “Climate change & the post 2015 development framework: Developing country perspectives” organised by ODI and CDKN different actors participated in the debate. According to Andrew Scott, ODI’s Research Fellow in Climate and Environment, climate change is not only an environmental issue. Climate change and development are intrinsically linked. The actions that we take to address climate change are intimately connected with development processes, and the actions we take to achieve development objectives have impact on the actions we take to reach climate change goals. So far, most of the debate about climate change in the SDGs framework has taken place in Europe and North America. We need an opportunity for the debate to take place in developing countries and to get the perspective of developing countries into the debate.

 “It’s a fundamental injustice that the world’s poorest people are paying for a climate crisis that they didn’t cause” – ODI Executive Director Kevin Watkins on CNBC Africa: http://www.cnbcafrica.com/video/?bctid=3800438928001

Peoples Climate March in Brussels – Photo credit: Martin Michiels

Politics is not responding in the way we want and unfortunately people who maintain the power have impact on people who don’t have any. Politicians instead are still obsessed with economic growth, which seems not to be the right solution to the problem. This is why individuals taking responsibility is the first step towards a more sustainable world. Each citizen of the world can really make a difference, not only changing his/her daily habits into more environmentally friendly ones, but also campaigning, participating, and raising the voice to make themselves heard. Don’t wait tomorrow, start being active NOW!

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world, is either a madman or an economist.”  (Kenneth Boulding, Economics professor)

The Good Country Index announced at the TED Salon in Berlin, measures how much each of 125 countries contributes to the planet.  With Ireland leading the table it turns out that all top ten countries are nations where a Fair Trade Town campaign is running. Is this a coincidence?

On 7 September however, Oudenaarde, Belgium declared as the 154th Fair Trade Town in Flanders making half of all Flemish municipalities a Fair Trade Town and Flanders the global leader for fair trade in terms of the proportion of the population covered. Out of a total of 308 municipalities 154 are now Fair Trade Towns with an additional 74 towns working towards gaining status. In Flanders over 4¼ million inhabitants now live in a Fair Trade Town. Does this make Flanders the Fairest of them all?

Photo credit: The Good Country Index

The Flemish campaign added a 6th goal to the original five founding goals which was aimed at promoting local and sustainable consumption.  Congratulations Flanders on this tremendous achievement and well done to all involved!

For further information contact Bruce Crowther the International Fair Trade Towns Ambassador at brucecrowther300@gmail.com

Bruce Crowther

International Fair Trade Towns Ambassador

The FIG Tree, Garstang, UK