Fair Trade, Local, Organic

Fair Trade - Equitable Trade

Fair is a four letter word. It often leads to those who have, being able to get more than those who don’t, just because it’s fair. Everyone gets the same. So, if those who have more participate, they get the same as those who have less. Those who have more don’t need any more at all. Those who have less need to get more so there is a balanced amount of resource distribution. This will allow for everyone having enough. That’s equitable. But, those who have more are the first to scream that it is unfair to give their share to someone who has less than them. In this case, fairness maintains the current power structure and distributes more resources to those who have the power.

Fair Trade is a first step. It allows those who are involved with the production of goods to get a premium price, but those producers don’t have direct negotiating rights to determine that price. The premiums that their goods do get, are determined by the market. A program called Good Trade provides direct negotiating rights to the growers and producers involved. Those growers and producers determine how much the purchaser will pay for their goods and not the other way around. The growers and producers can then make sure they get what they need to continue producing, surviving and thriving. The growers and producers then start to control the market and not the other way around. That is equitable. That is true Fair Trade, when everyone gets what they need.

Local

Local is being spun as a marketing gimmick. Walmart advertised “Local” on its web sites. For Walmart, produce from anywhere in the U.S. is considered local. The U.S. is a very large land mass. What local means to many people is not food being trucked 1500 or more miles. Local is basically meaningless unless defined. We need to define local. Give it some guts. Give it standards. This definition cannot come from a corporate source making profit from what is local. It must come from the people directly involved in the locale. It’s the people who need to insist that before anything be sold to them as “Local”, this thing honor a set of standards that the people have designed themselves.

Organic

“Organic” used to be a philosophy and a movement. Now, philosophy has been thrown out the window and the focus is on law and financial economy. Multinational corporations have become or bought organic food producers, manufacturers, distributors and sellers. Profit takes precedence over the health of the planet and the needs of the people.

Corporations as organic food producers is probably the single most destructive thing that happened to the organic movement. An entity that focuses on profit cannot participate in a movement that focuses on the benefit of the planet and the creatures living on it. Just because the law says something is organic, does not mean it is "Organic".