Fair trade

Fair trade is an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. It started around the end of World War Two and was very much led by religious organisations in its early days. Charities like Oxfam became involved in the movement in the 1960s, but by the early 1980s it was still tiny in relation to the trade market overall.

This was despite the morale justification and the way producers were treated including being short changed. The comparative advantages of fair trade give producers a fair trade premium enabling them to develop their communities and education system in a sustainable way.

It was at this time that the first major fair trade organisation began in the UK, Traidcraft, which had religion incorporated into their way of working e.g. prayers first thing in the morning. They promoted sales through fair traders, many of whom sold the goods through their church. The sales began to take off not only in the UK, but in other European countries (although never in the Americas).

The fair trade movement grew to such an extent that supermarkets began to sell some limited ranges of Fairtrade goods e.g. bananas, coffee etc. When the supermarkets came on board this meant that Fair trade sales became mainstream.

There are many more Fairtrade products than you might envisage, currently they total over 6,000 and this has meant that the Fairtrade premium has exceeded $1 billion since 1994.

Many of the fair traders who signed up in the 1980s and 1990s with Traidcraft have since, due to ill health and old age had to stand down, and many have not been able to find replacements. So Fairtrade sales through churches has declined accordingly.

The growth in supermarket sales was partly at the expense of organisations like Traidcraft, and with the decline in Church based fair traders, that has had a detrimental effect on their business, so much so that in the last few years a number of them have gone into receivership, for example, 'Thought' who specialised in fair trade socks.

There has been a total dip in Fairtrade sales - as supermarkets are no longer selling many/any Fairtrade goods, and due to company failures. That gap has been filled in a certain extent by online sales - the major ones in the UK are:

• Oxfam - including their ebay account (which offer particularly good prices)
• Ethical Superstore
• We are Fair Trade
• Tony Chocolonely
• Premcast

The fair trade movement has also broadened out to include Eco measures, and many Churches are now exploring Eco Church status whether that is Bronze, Silver or Gold accreditation.

So the challenge for Churches and its congregations today, is to continue to support Fairtrade and their principles of environmental sustainability and Fairtrade premiums.

The need is still there, because despite the above successes, there is still a lot of poor practice which means that producers are not able to live other than 'hand to mouth'. So please, if you can, use websites and social media to explore what fair trade can mean for you in this electronic decade.

Br Stuart Brierley

Royton