"Before you've finished your breakfast this morning, you'll have relied on half the world"
- Martin Luther King
An interesting thought. And a depressing one, when you realise that those people you've relied on for your coffee and muesli are almost certainly being exploited and oppressed by the unfair power balance in world trade.
But what can you do? Surely it's beyond your control? Wrong. You can buy Fair Trade products. And you can add your voice to the Big Noise.
Fair Trade is a growing, international movement which ensures that producers in poor countries get a fair deal. This means a fair price for their goods (one that covers the cost of production and guarantees a living income), long-term contracts which provide real security; and for many, support to gain the knowledge and skills that they need to develop their businesses and increase sales.
Fair Trade and the Make Trade Fair campaign
The Fair Trade movement has been one of the most powerful responses to the problems facing commodity producers. It gives consumers an opportunity to use their purchasing power to tilt the balance, however slightly, in favour of the poor. But Fair Trade alone can't address the crisis faced by the millions of small-scale farmers and producers whose livelihoods are threatened by low commodity prices and unfair competion from rich countries.
This can only be achieved by changing the unfair rules of world trade so that they work for small-scale producers as well as rich multinationals.
In the meantime, for hundreds of thousands of people, Fair Trade means the difference between a hand-to-mouth existence, and being able to plan for the future.
In the past decade, the Fair Trade movement has really taken off, as consumer awareness of - and indignation at - the treatment of producers in poor countries has increased. More retailers than ever are stocking Fair Trade goods, the number of products on offer continues to grow as demand increases, and more poor communities are feeling the benefits.
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