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A New Market Converges

At the 2005 Future of Fair Trade Conference businesses and activists gathered with the hope that the future of fair trade will include a much bigger variety of products.

Date Posted on Global Envision: October 24, 2005

Between September 30th and October 2nd Chicago’s famous downtown Merchant Mart, considered a bastion of style and upscale consumerism, was invaded by seven hundred and fifty fair trade consumers, activists, and businesses. They converged for the first public conference on the future of Fair Trade. Display tables were laden with beautiful handmade jewelry, fabrics, pictures of happy workers in coffee fields, pamphlets on family farming, and free samples of fair trade chocolate. Wholesalers from coast to coast, coffee roaster cooperatives, farmers from Ghana, university students, advertising agencies, members of fair trade grocery stores in Japan, and representatives from the United Nations were all present. In a flurry of business cards and networking they attended workshops on everything from religious retailing and the political workings of the WTO to social justice in agriculture and how to launch hip marketing campaigns.

The conference was hosted by the Fair Trade Federation and the Fair Trade Resource Network, whose main goals were to bring together people committed to "Living a Fair Trade Life". One of the most prominent advocates of fair trade, former President Jimmy Carter, summarized the goals of fair trade in his letter to the attendees when he described fair trade as a "movement which uplifts the basic principles of human rights and human dignity and takes positive, concrete steps towards poverty reduction." Among the attendees there were many different interpretations on how those "concrete steps" should be taken. They generally agreed upon the definition of "Fair Trade" as helping poor farmers receive a ‘fair’ price for their product, decent living and working conditions, and the ability to organize themselves democratically in unions or cooperatives.

Many of the attendees were like Poonam Singhal, who had first-hand experience as a wholesaler. She started her craft business in 1996, when fair trade was a relatively new concept. She displayed her beautiful, hand-crafted ornaments and jewelry at the conference, each made by women in India who work for her company, Rupalee Exclusifs. Rupalee Exclusifs advertises itself to retailers internationally as "fair trade with style". At the conference Poonam Singhal marketed her ornaments as a "Christmas tree of women’s empowerment". The irony of poor Hindu and Muslim women in India trying to improve their lives by making high end Christmas tree ornaments was not lost on her, but she argued the program was working well because Indian women were gaining a better education and access to health care for their families by working with Rupalee Exclusifs.

Aside from meeting with retailers who might be interested in carrying her crafts, Poonam hoped to exchange experiences and information with other fair trade wholesalers. There were many at the conference eager to learn from Poonam’s experience, like Henny Prijatna, who came from Seattle, Washington. Henny works for a small wholesaler that sells handbags made by a fair trade women’s co-op in Thailand. Like many, Henny Prijatna is just entering the world of fair trade. Her company started last year, but she is hopeful and already talking of expanding production to other South east Asian countries.

Businesses were not the only interests represented at the conference, university students made up one of the largest constituency at the conference. The Fair Trade Movement is a new type of political activism and consciousness found on many campuses throughout North America and Western Europe. While past generations of students have rallied against racism and unfair wars, current students want to fight the growing disparity created by free global trade and the exploitation of developing countries. Philippe Lapointe drove 16 hours to Chicago with a delegation from his University in Montreal, Quebec. They came to absorb as much information as possible, in order to use new ideas in mounting a more effective campaign at home. He was joined by other activists with dreadlocks and laptops who were talking about their experiences in promoting fair trade on different campuses.

A less excited constituency was made up of producers like Hilaria López, who was flown to the convention by the conference organizers as a representative of the producer’s view of fair trade. Hilaria is a member of a women’s cooperative that produces handmade jewelry in Guerrero, Mexico. She stood out in the crowd of the conference, which was dominated by white, well educated, English-speaking retailers and consumers. By the third day of the convention she said she was not that excited by the current condition of fair trade, which from her perspective seems to have created more change for consumers than it has for producers at this point. It is only in the future of fair trade, maybe 20 years down the line, where she can imagine any large changes for herself and the women she works with in Mexico. A white woman who said she was interested in international development told Hilaria to smile as they had their picture taken by the press.

The organizers were pleased with the turnout even though the conference was so heavily populated by consumers and not producers. As the market for fair trade labels expands it is exciting to see the development of more fair trade products. Businesses and activists are no longer simply talking about the market for gourmet coffee and many hope that the future of fair trade will include a variety of products from police uniforms to fruits like mangos and bananas. In the back of most attendees’ minds was the startling realization of the potential power of fair trade as a means of redistributing wealth. One of the leading non-profits involved in fair trade issues, Oxfam International, has calculated that if Africa’s share of world exports increased by 1%, the $90 billion generated would be three times more than what the entire continent currently receives in aid and debt relief!


Article contributed by Sarah Miller, a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is interested in fair trade and recently attended the 2005 Future of Fair Trade Conference in Chicago, IL..

To read a Global Envision article about a successful fair trade endeavor, see Environmental and Commercial Success .

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