Have you noticed the FAIRTRADE Mark popping up in some new places recently? In the fresh vegetables section perhaps? Or while browsing the tinned food shelves? Bean sprouts and baked beans are just the first few new Fairtrade products to arrive in the shops as a result of the new Fairtrade standards for pulses.

The beans behind these Fairtrade firsts have come from a group of farmers in Inner Mongolia. The picture shows them discussing with each other their ideas about Fairtrade. They live in one of China’s poorest rural regions near Tong Liao City. Far from the sea, and sitting at altitude, the winters here are long and cold and the summers fleeting and warm. These are the perfect conditions for the 39 farmers of Jurihe/Zhaluteqi Nature Village Farmer Association to grow soybeans and other pulses, including the white kidney beans that go into Geo Organics Fairtrade baked beans, and the mung beans which travel to the UK before being sprouted to make The Co-operative’s fresh beansprouts. Together, the land farmed by the group adds up to more than 2,000 hectares, and their harvest weighs in at about 3,000 tonnes a year.

The group has been Fairtrade certified since 2009, for peanuts, soybeans and other pulses. Mr Liu Gui Hai, chair of the co-operative says: ‘We have invested the social premium in building a well for the village which helps the farmers greatly. With the premium, we can give subsidies to families who face accidents and disasters, such as fires.’

In the village of Tie Bei, everyone is hopeful that demand for Fairtrade pulses in the UK will be high. Their children’s education is depending on it. The schools in the area are old, shabby and ill equipped, so they’ve got big plans for investing the Fairtrade premium in education – books, equipment, classroom refurbishment, even whole new school buildings. At the moment, children often have to make journeys of over an hour on foot to reach the nearest school and in the depths of winter, when temperatures can drop to minus 20 degrees C, the walk to classes is out of the question. The farmers also plan to invest in heaters and warm clothes to see them through the worst of the winter.