Top Fairtrade News
For the latest on Fairtrade producers in
Haiti, visit www.fairtrade.net/press_releases.html
Poor harvest blow for Fairtrade oliver farmers
- Fairtrade in Palestine - one year on
In November 2009 Veronica Pasteur, Head of Campaigns at the Fairtrade Foundation, joined the Zaytoun Olive Tour in Palestine, visiting olive farmers and their communities to experience living and farming in the West Bank. As well as meeting the farmers and the co-operatives, the purpose of the trip was also to help the farmers collect the olives, though this year has seen the farmers’ worst harvest in 20 years, so the work had already been done. As well as a bad year of harvest, the olive farmers face continued struggles due to the Israel/Palestine conflict. The cooperative in the village of Anin, in particular, is directly affected by the position of their land right next to the separation wall.
A year ago in Fair Comment we featured the Anin Co-operative on the launch of their Fairtrade certified olive oil in the UK. The certification has enabled the farmers to access markets previously out of their reach.
Support the olive farmers in Palestine through their poor harvest by buying their olive oil – available in Sainsbury’s and Co-op stores – visit ww.equalexchange.co.uk for your nearest stockist, or catch up with the latest news from the farmers at
www.zaytoun.org and
Veronica’s blogThe first Fairtrade melons in the world
- Farmers hope melons will sell well in first year
The world’s first-ever Fairtrade certified melons, produced by a small growers’ co-operative COODAP (Cooperativa de Desenvolvimento Agroindustrial Potiguar) from Mossoro in northern Brazil, are now available in Asda and Morrisons.
The co-operative has 20 members, who each tend an average of eight hectares each, and is the first to receive Fairtrade certification for melon production. Maria Do Socorro Santos Ribeiro, secretary of COODAP, says the farmers are looking forward to receiving a fair price and having an international market for their fruit. They plan to spend the Fairtrade premium on a computer lab for internet access. ‘We are going to use the premiums to buy a few secondhand computers so that people in the community do not get left out in this digital age. One or two will also go to the school.’
The melons will be available until the end of February and the farmers hope that good sales this year will result in supermarkets increasing their orders for the next season. Melons were added to the Fairtrade Standards for Fresh Fruit earlier this year by Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO), opening the door for COODAP to become certified as
Fairtrade.
Look out for the newest Fairtrade fruit, available in a store near you now!
£12 million for Fairtrade's future
- Fairtrade aims to help even more producers
In November 2009 the UK Government announced that it is to invest £12 million in Fairtrade over the next four years. This will enable the Fairtrade Foundation, and its partners in the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International (FLO), to continue to expand globally and support even more producers in developing countries. The UK is the leading country in terms of sales of Fairtrade products – shoppers can choose from over 4,500 certified products, from cotton and coffee to fruit, chocolate and cosmetics. Thanks to this investment Fairtrade hopes to achieve some key aims: a 100% increase in the number of farmers in the Fairtrade system, increased access to Fairtrade producers in some of the hardest-to-reach areas and conflict zones in the world – for example Palestine – and to double the Fairtrade premiums for producers so that they can invest in and develop their own community projects. Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation says: ‘The announcement is very timely on this fifteenth anniversary and is a fitting tribute to how innovative producers, campaigners and businesses have created the most dynamic movement for better, fairer trade’.
© Spring 2010 Fair Comment