| |
*
...Any definition of
a culture of peace must address the problem of achieving justice for communities
and individuals who do not have the means to compete or cope without structured
assistance and compassionate help.
--
Mahnaz Afkhami |
| The
Fair Trade movement is growing as people realize that they can help alleviate
poverty and protect the environment by choosing Fair Trade products.
-- Robert Alan Silverstein |  |
"Fair Trade supports
some of the most bio-diverse farming systems in the world. When you visit a Fair
Trade coffee grower's fields, with the forest canopy overhead and the sound of
migratory songbirds in the air, it feels like you're standing in the rainforest."
-- Professor Miguel Altieri, Leading expert and author on agroecology
NAFTA
and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do
with liberty.
-- Michael Badnarik, Libertarian Presidential candidate
*
"It
hit me very early on that something was terribly wrong, that I would see silos
full of food and supermarkets full of food, and kids starving. ... In Fair Trade,
we see ourselves as this infinitesimal part of the world economy. But somebody's
got to come up with an alternative model that says children eating is No. 1."
-- Medea Benjamin,
co-founder, Global Exchange, and former U.N. nutritionist |
|
There is hardly
a study in the entire literature which fails to demonstrate that satisfaction
in work is enhanced or that other generally acknowledged beneficial consequences
accrue from a genuine increase in workers' decision-making power. Such consistency
of findings, I admit is rare in social research
-- Paul Blumberg
"It
is very important for you to know that fair trade leads to better roads, better
health and better lives for farmers not just in Nicaragua, but around the world."
-- Rosario Castellon, former director of PRODECOOP
"When
people become economically empowered, they gain political and social power. Many
of the groups that we work with do more than just produce crafts; they're involved
in community development, health and education. For the women we work with, the
effe ct is even greater. As they gain employment, they become able to leave abusive
situations, to seek legal assistance, to acquire education, to become independent.
Their work allows them to be economically significant in the family and gives
them leverage to be considered an equal ."
-- Bob Chase, executive director,
SERRV International
"The
fair price is a solution. It has given us the chance to pay a good price to our
farmers. Those who are not in Fair Trade want to participate. For us it is a great
opportunity. It gives us hope."
-- Benjamin Cholotío
The
low prices paid to small producers on the national market mean that the best Mexican
products are exported. Fair Trade makes it possible for small producers to also
receive dignifid prices in the national market and to not depend exclusively on
export
-- Comercio Justo Me´xico
"The
needs of small farmers, whether they grow coffee [in the South] or produce [in
the North], may be quite similar. Both groups need better access to and more control
over the market. That can only happen if consumers use their market power to vote
for fair prices to the grower, better access to financing for small farmers, and
more environmentally sustainable production."
-- Rink Dickinson, Co-Director,
Equal Exchange
The
Equal Exchange warehouse houses organic coffee from peasant farmers in Oaxaca,
Mexico. It houses watermelons from disadvantaged, black farmers from Georgia,
South Carolina, and other parts of the south. Both the watermelon and the coffee
farmers have created co-ops to arrange marketing and give them a chance against
larger growers and processors. The implications of this convergence between the
work of the watermelon farmers, peach farmers, tea growers, and coffee farmers
is immense.
-- Rink Dickinson, Co-Director, Equal Exchange
*
“The
failure so far of the governments of so many of the worlds most powerful countries
in the face of such egregious unfairness ... to make the slightest progress on
the issue of fair trade is hard to explain."
-- Colin Firth *
When
I visited coffee farms in Ethiopia, the farmers could not believe we spend a week's
wages in their country on a cup of coffee in ours, because they see so little
of the profits. Oxfam's fair trade campaign helps right this wrong.
-- Colin
Firth | 
|
I pity the man who
wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth will starve
in the process.
-- Benjamin Harrison
"Fair
trade. Would it not be more logical to label unfair products?"
-- Loesje
"A bite of fair Trade
chocolate means a lot to farmers in the South. It opens the doors to development
and gives children access to healthcare, education, and a decent standard of living."
-- K. Ohemeng-Tinyase, Managing Director of Kuapa Kokoo cocoa cooperative, Ghana
"Fair Trade is
part of a larger movement about corporate social responsibility, influenced by
the public's desire to deal with companies that are (committed) to workplace quality,
the environment and employee well-being."
--Mac McCoy, president, dZi--The
Tibet Collection
