How much do you care about Fair Trade?

Question

An earlier question made me wonder if other vegans and vegetarians go out of their way to get Fair Trade chocolate and coffee, if they consider it part of their veg*nism to not support human slavery as well, or what other products/practices you guys know of that contribute to awful human rights violations.
(Also interested in hearing responses from non-veg people who support the Fair Trade initiatives.)

Answer 1

I don't give a damn, because I know someone in the coffee business as a wholesaler, and the told me straight-up that fair trade is a scam -- a total scam and the farmers are not getting very much more money out of it if any at all. He does what he calls "Direct Trade". Direct from the farm in S. America to him. He Directly gives them his money. No middlemen. See, even with Fair Trade, there all sorts of middlemen. Sure, it may be a bit better, but not much at all from what I've been told. **Direct Trade** is what we need to focus on -- totally completely get rid of the middle men between the farm and the local wholesaler. Farm to Wholesaler, to Coffee Shop. The end. Unless you are a coffee chain, then you can be your own wholesaler, from the Farm to Your Coffee Shops

Answer 2

I always only buy fair trade coffee, chocolate and bananas and have bought sugar also from the Co/op.
I don't eat meat because of it's abusive production.
Moleski is annoyed at all abuses of slave labor that exist in most work places even Britain. Because even though they are paid a few pennies more than people in a say China, the price of living is at a premium. And in China some factories give free meals to the workforce and the cost of living is low.
Cheap labor comes at a price for all workers and they are put under too much pressure to work for sod all. But they do it anyway cause most have no other options.
That's how the rich get even richer and the souls of men and woman are getting the life sucked out of them, making them into cold robots. This is what the fascist dictators want then no-one has time for questioning it because the abused are all to busy or tired.
It should all be fair, to be fair, then people can rebuild their souls and shape a more pleasant existence.

And Direct like Scocasso said.

An African woman I saw once on TV said "My life is good." whilst her feet were getting eaten by maggots and all she had to live in was a crude tarp covered shelter. Her job was drying fish. The name of the place escapes me I'm afraid but her words were unforgettable.

Answer 3

As a vegan this is VERY important to me. I honestly never gave it much thought until I became a vegan and then it dawned on me that if I am really going out of my way to lead a compassionate life that needs to include humans as well.

I am not perfect by any means - and I am learning as I go along but every opportunity I have to make the fair trade choice I will take it. If anyone has any tips about making fair trade choices (besides chocolate and coffee) please let us know!

Answer 4

At bottom, Fair Trade is a price support program, like the agricultural subsidies in your own country (if your country is in Europe, North America, or northeast Asia). It's wrongheaded in the long run; if it's impossible to make a living growing coffee that's the invisible hand telling you to do something else. In the short run, it's a decent charity program - selling coffee as Fair Trade can support sending a child to secondary school instead of staying home to work for food, thus allowing the child to eventually get a better job than growing coffee. Unlike other price support systems, it's buyer-controlled, so it's not guaranteed to implode from oversupply and underdemand. (Excess product meeting Fair Trade standards has to be sold on the free market.) Fair Trade drinkables tend to be medium quality; the cheap stuff filling Folgers cans and Lipton boxes is produced by large plantations and sold at prices too low to absorb the costs, while the best is sold by individual farmers in lots too small to go through the Fair Trade process in a market well above Fair Trade price support levels. Also, due to Fair Trade rules, FT coffee must be produced by co-operatives and FT tea by plantations or co-ops, so it's very hard to get Fair Trade coffee from Brazil or tea from smallholder-farmed China, and completely impossible from Japan and Taiwan. I don't believe in going out of my way to buy fair trade myself, but if people want to devote 10-50 cents per pound (i.e. 0.125 - 0.5 cents per cup) to some coffee co-op or tea plantation to be spent on improving the farmers' lives, plus a price-support floor (that is not set dangerously high), that's their business.

Answer 5

Fair trade is an important tool for the conscientious to have adirect effect on Global economics. The more powerfull the Fair Trade brand becomes the more vigorous will be the attempts to dicredit and subvert it. The Coop in the UK have spearheaded the fairtrade campaign whilst all other supermarkets have sought to exploit the Fair Trade brand to increase their mark up. There is another side to food and politics which is also important to consider and that involves coorporate morality and responsibility. I avoid the Nestle and Heinz brand names for these reasons. I suggest interested parties check out the website of MP Gerge Galloway for further info on this.

Answer 6

I purchase fair trade chocolate when the option if there (often I can only find it online or @ natural food stores). Although I'm not a coffee drinker I always encourage my SO to buy fair trade, shade-grown coffee.

Answer 7

It does concern me. I try to buy fair trade coffee often. But how do you know which chocolates are fair trade?

What more concerns me is buying locally grown products (to avoid more oil being used in transit) and American-made, to support American businesses and workers rights, as opposed to foreign-made products made in sweatshops and/or sold at very low profits.

Answer 8

I support fair trade. I only patronize coffee shops that participate in this practice. I'm not too hip (up to date) about the chocolate though.

Answer 9

I stand up for the oppressed produce of the world. Nobody stops to think as the rip the leafs from a lettuce plant or scrape the skin from a carrot...

Long live Cabbage!

Answer 10

I try to buy locally, and organic. if their is fair trade then it find it's way into the shopping bag.