Fair Trade Blog

Now you can add Fair Trade Flowers to your shopping list!  TransFair, the only Fair Trade certification organisation in the United States, now certifies producers of the roses you give on Valentine’s Day, or that fall bouquet for grandma’s house at Thanksgiving.

The transition to Fair Trade production by growers, mainly in Colombia, Kenya, and Ecuador, is a huge improvement for workers at large flower plantations.

Production to satisfy the 19.5 billion dollar cut flower and plant market is labor and chemical intensive.  Workers at non-certified plantations often suffer from repeated exposure to toxic insecticides and herbicides.  When the crush for holiday shipments is at it’s peak, workers can be forced to work up to 18 hours without overtime pay to deliver flowers in time for big days like Valentine’s Day. 

Did you know that 90 percent of all gift flowers purchased in the US are given to women and that most of the floriculture workers on Fair Trade plantations are women?  It’s a parallel that demands mention.

Fair Trade in flower production directly benefits the women who make it successful.  In additon to a living wage for all it’s workers, certification requires employee benefits including 12 weeks paid maternity leave and childcare. 

Certification also alleviates a heinous practice common in modern agriculture — exposing workers to toxic chemicals.  Floriculture is the most chemical intensive agricultural practice in the world.  Studies have found over half of flower plantation workers showed signs of chemcial poisoning in countries like Ecuador. 

Plantations engaged in Fair Trade commit to reducing chemical use and provide saftey measures for workers like protective clothing.  Organic practices are becoming more widely used, but since flowers are simply admired instead of consumed, the transition has been slow in taking root.  While organic practice has not even been tried in production of the most common crops like carnations and lillies, organic practices continue to spread.

Fair Trade Flowers are readily available.  FTD, 1-800-FLOWERS, and even Sam’s Club offer them online.  Grocery chains including GIANT Food Stores, King’s Super Markets, and Whole Foods Market, offer them in their Floral sections. 

So the next time you want to say something nice, say it with Fair Trade flowers!

Keep shopping your good values!

We want to help you dress up your tree this year.

If your tree needs sprucing up, we have a whole new section of ornaments this holiday season.  Check out our Brushkin animals from the Philippines.  These irresistible animals will become loyal holiday friends. You can have the moon and the stars keeping watch over your tree with our golden filigree ornaments from Nepal. 

Sometimes a great scarf is as good as a warm friend on cold winter outings.  Our Alpaca scarves come in rich and inviting colors.  I think it’s the perfect gift for anyone.  If you are like me, I rarely give clothing as gifts because size and personal tastes are always a dilemma, but I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t enjoy wrapping up in one of these!

You’ll find new jewelry on our site as well. If you’re into bold and chunky, we have two necklaces that make a statement.  Both are made from dyed tagua nut.  Tagua (also known as vegetable ivory) is solid, beautiful and makes our slice and chunky style necklaces a fascinating choice.  

And if cats are your fancy, we have a little friend for you.  Our new sterling silver cat pendant from Nepal is a perfect gift for cat lovers.

I hope you enjoy discovering our newest items, and remember…

Keep shopping your good values.

It’s not always easy to become greener,  but we all recognize that it’s important to reuse, recycle, and restore in our personal environs as well as our businesses.  That, of course, is easier said then done. 

Businesess, as I have discovered, can be a huge consumer of all kinds of things from paper products to electricity and water.  In the shipping industry, for example, nearly every finished good you can think of is transported in a cardboard box.  Empty cardboard boxes can pile up at an astonishing rate.  

We keep a good number of the boxes we receive from wholesalers and use them to pack up customer’s purchases or ship orders we receive over the internet.  And they come in handy to store merchandize and supplies.  We do our best not to contribute to our local landfill. 

Even one of our wholesalers helped me out last week.  Minga Fair Trade Imports is in constant need of boxes for shipping.  So, after a visit, they were kind enough to take some of our largest boxes and bubble wrap off my hands.  Our back room is a little tidier and I feel better about not throwing away more boxes and packing.  

Almost exactly two years ago, when we were getting ready to open the store, we needed fixtures on a shoestring budget.   Mostly out of necessity, but also out of a desire to tackle waste, we went dumpster diving across the street behind a clothing store that was closing.

Dumpster diving is hard, dirty work, but we snagged some real finds.  Though you probably could not tell just by wandering around our store, many of the fixtures we use were saved from the landfill.   A little cleaning, imagination, and some paint worked wonders. 

An old vanity topped with discarded shutters became a jewelry display, while an abandoned tie rack is now a beautiful scarf display.  With a little care and creativity, a stack of dusty relics became valued display pieces. 

It takes constant effort.  This year I found great printed shopping bags made from recycled paper, but it required some thought and research.   But I’m happy to know that our customers will walk out of our store just as green as they came in. 

Keep shopping your good values!