Fair Trade Blog

I just ran across the term “passive consumption” this morning.  Being a wordsmith from way back, it struck me as the perfect term for how we as Americans do so much of our shopping.  How many times have you been on autopilot when buying — guided only by lowest price, or easy access?   I plead guilty!  

It’s so easy to forget how much power we have.  Americans consume more products than any other country in the world.  I would think we would want to drive that constant tidal wave of spending dollars toward the greater good rather than what is easiest or cheapest.  

Active consumption, of course, implies effort.  Exactly right!  You have to get off the beaten path, read labels, think about the choice you are making when you buy a loaf of bread or a pair of shoes.  

Fortunately, it’s getting easier to make more informed decisions without lots of research and leg work.  Green products and Fair Trade products are more available than ever before.  Chain stores like Whole Foods and  Starbucks are bringing thousands of organic, sustainable, and Fair Trade products to the market.  Local retailers, like us, are filling in the gaps and expanding the shopping consciousness.  

Finally, I’ll offer my one step challenge.   Sometimes we have to walk before we can run.   So, I challenge you to change just one item that you normally consume.   Change your coffee, look for the locally produced honey, or find that new blouse by shopping Fair Trade online.  

Change happens one step at a time, so let me know how it’s going.  Put yourself one step closer to becoming a truly “active” consumer.

Keep shopping your good values! 

The world celebrates fair trade today, May 10th.  More than ever, the world needs the solutions that Fair Trade offers.  Achieving and sustaining a clean environment is one of the benefits of Fair Trade. 

Ecology is this year’s theme.  It’s a natural focus that fits perfectly with the goals of all of us involved in Fair Trade.  From the web home of the World Fair Trade Day:

Fair Trade is a force for protecting the environment while promoting sustainable development. Fair Trade favours the sustainable use of natural resources and production methods that are not capital and oil intensive, favouring hand production and organic agriculture - to reduce the carbon footprint.

Events are happening all over the world, including right here in Viroqua, the town we call home.  Our friends at Kickapoo Coffee are participating in the World Fair Trade Day Coffee Break.  They hope this will be the largest coffee break the world has ever seen as millions sip a cup of Fair Trade brew to honor the accomplishments of the Fair Trade Coffee Industry.  

Fairly traded coffee is still the largest component of Fair Trade business around the world.   We sell our fair share of coffee here at Driftless Fair Traders, along with our teas and other gourmet items.

If you would like to know more about this special day, follow this link to World Fair Trade Day. 

Keep shopping your good values! 

What do you do when the world is getting you down and you can’t take anymore bad news?  For Enika Poehling, the answer was somersaults. 

Enika was in our shop a few days ago picking up fair trade gifts for a family with a newborn along with a couple of other items.    We chatted for quite awhile and, at one point, she related how she recently resolved the symptoms caused by contemplating the more frustrating problems of the world. 

After listening to a particularly horrendous news story about a government contractor using tar full of toxic waste to pave municipal streets, she had reached her breaking point.  “I was like this,” she said gritting her teeth and clenching her fists.  I’m sure you can relate. 

Someone had advised her to put her feet up to combat stress and muscle strain.   It occured to her to just continue the movement and roll all the way over.   After completing a series of somersaults, she said she was cured of the stress of the moment.  “I’m 59 and half and I’m doing somersaults,” she chuckled at me giddily. 

Sometimes the thing we need is silly, delightful, and a bit childish, like running through puddles or making snow angels.  On the other hand, there are lots of practical and powerful ways to combat the world’s problems. Perhaps buying fair trade artisan goods is like doing a somersault with your pocketbook. 

Thanks, Enika, for a great story. 

Keep shopping your good values! 

Kile

People are increasingly shopping with their principals as well as their pocketbooks in mind.  It’s not always easy to match your values with the places you shop or the things you buy.  We live in a fast paced and complex world.  It’s hard to keep up with what’s available and the busineses that provide them. 

There are tools that can help.   One great example, (one I use myself) is the Fair Trade Federation.   Not only does their website have current information about fair trade, but you can search for specific fair trade products under their “Find Products” heading on their homepage.

Want someone you can empathize with?  WalletMouth (Aptly named, don’t you think?), maintained by Bronwyn Ximm, documents her personal struggle to put her money where her mouth is.  The conversational way she presents information and tools she has tested herself makes this folksy site fun and valuable.  My favorite is her “Buycotts & Boycotts” section.

For a more interactive experience, check out dotherightthing.com.  Here you can help rate businesses on their social responsibility by submitting news articles about specific companies.  Visitors to the site rank the importance of the news and companies get a rating.   Currently, their top rated company is Seventh Generation, maker of green household products.  

In this political season the big issues are on everyone’s mind — global warming, the environment, social justice, and lately, race relations. We all get reminded more and more that our purchases count — they have an impact.  I want to know how you are making a difference with your pocketbook.  Drop us a comment on this post.

Of course, we are here to help you with new spring arrivals.  We look forward to seeing you in the shop and online. 

Keep shopping your good values!

Kile

Since Arghand Cooperative founder Sarah Chayes’ interview with Bill Moyers aired on Friday, Feb., 22, we have been inundated with orders and requests for Arghand soap.  Unfortunately, we have only a few pieces of soap left at this time.   Please call for availability.  608-630-1548.  

Intense, moving, and eye opening, Sarah Chayse’s appearance last night on Bill Moyer’s Journal could not have been more powerful.   (Bill Moyer’s Journal is rebroadcast on some stations, so check local listings.  You can watch the video here.)  

She expressed the ongoing struggle of the Afghan people from the point of view of someone who has lived in the country for some time now.  Her personal and journalistic perspectives on the war are enlightening to anyone who watches the interview.  

Six years now after the overthrow of the Taliban regime, she says security and opportunity for Afghans is slipping away.  It is no longer possible to drive the main highway from Kandahar to Kabul without threat from the Taliban. Poppy is resurgent as a crop and is so prolific it has become the currency of trade in some situations.  A billion dollars for infrastructure has only resulted in electricity for a few hours a day.  Conditions in which Arghand must produce soap and oils are difficult. 

Moyers asked her if she is still optimisitc, if she still has hope.  “I don’t think hope is relevant,” she said.  “I think determination is all that counts.”   She insists that we can’t let the world take up a new global war in which the East is locked with the West in endless struggle.

Her soap cooperative gives us an opportunity to share her determination.  

Pie and coffee are a great combination.   It’s easy to find a good cup brewed with beans from another country that were fairly traded, but the locally grown berries in your pie probably weren’t.  While the principles of fair trade are spreading throughout the developing world, it is ironic to realize they are largely not practiced right here in the US. 

My hat is off to the Local Fair Trade Network, based in Minneapolis, Minn., for trying to change that.  This grassroots effort, supported mostly by food co-ops in Minnesota and Wisconsin, is working to get fair trade practices adopted by growers of local produce. 

To that end, they have called for growers and retailers in the Midwest to take the pledge.  The pledge commits growers to practice principals including, respect for worker’s freedom of association and right to collective bargaining, providing adequate health and safety protections, and providing a living wage. 

Just a few local farms have taken the pledge, but I hope more will join in making fair trade principles part of their production process.  

Note:  Don’t miss Sarah Chayse on Bill Moyers Journal this Friday night on PBS.  Check your local listings, as they say…

Keep shopping your good values.

Kile

Everything at Driftless Fair Traders has a story.  I love the way our customers eyes light up when I tell them something special about the item that caught their eye. 

The story of Arghand soap, for example, is well known to you if you have been reading my blog.  It’s a great story, so I plan to tell you more unique stories in the coming months.

Ecology Man definitely has a tale to tell.  Though he is only a couple of inches tall, he has the power to protect whole forests in South America. 

Eco Man (as his friends call him) was born not too long ago at Minga Enterprises.   Minga works with two cooperatives in South America and is always creating useful and sustainable products to sell here in the US.  

As you would expect, Eco Man is sturdy, colorful and very handy.  By day he is a handy keychain, but by night he helps protect the rainforest by giving local farmers an alternative to slash and burn agriculture through fair trade practices.  His arms, legs, head and torso are carved and dyed from durable tagua nut.  Tagua nuts are about the size of a walnut and are collected from palm trees on which they grow.

His favorite hobby is taking care of your keys as long as you let him out once in a while to look after his super hero duties.  

Check him out in our store and look for warm and luxurious Minga clothing in our e-store.

Keep shopping your good values!

Kile

Europeans have always been ahead of us Americans in embracing Fairtrade.  In Europe, whole towns and villages have adopted fair trade as a principle of commerce.  Two countries are now racing toward becoming the first Fairtrade country. 

In December, it was announced that Caerphilly, a Welsh town is trying to become the latest town to gain fairtrade status in Wales to help that country become the first Fairtrade country.   Wales is just three towns shy of gaining the coveted title of first in the world. 

The tiny alpine country of Leichtenstein is also working toward the title, but it appears that Wales currently is closer to the goal according to the Max Havelaar Foundation which is monitoring and verifying the process. 

To become a Fairtrade country, towns and counties have embarked on a campaign to offer fairtrade products in their public spaces such as in workplaces, schools, churchs and government facilities.  Then the products must reach a certain target number of the population. 

The whole point, expressed by Robert Parker-Munn, former Mayor of Llanidloes in Powys county, which has already acheived Fairtrade status, is “becoming a Fairtrade nation is Wales’ chance to make a positive difference to the world.”

We have a long way to go in this country in embracing the positive contributions of Fairtrade.  Media, Pennsylvania is the only Fairtrade community in the US. 

Is it possible your county, town, or city could gain Fairtrade status?  Check out this link to find out how to get Fairtrade status for your community.  Perhaps its time to close the gap with the europeans in the Fairtrade race. 

Keep shopping your good values! 

Kile

Toy companies have pushed production offshore to boost profits, but at the cost of children’s safety, according to a new report just released by Public Citizen — a non-profit watchdog group.  Titled Santa’s Sweatshop: Made in D.C. with Bad Trade Policy, the report details the root causes of the current toy safety crisis.

The findings are not in the least surprising in light of the headline-grabbing fact of 120 toy recalls this year, but it is shocking in it’s details.   In blind pursuit of the bottom line, toy manufacturers have shifted production since 1970 until 87 percent of toys sold in the U.S. are now manufactured overseas.  In that time frame, toy company profits have risen by 1,750 percent and CEO salaries have risen to 500 times what remining US toy workers earn.  Toy recalls jumped by 224 percent this year.  

Oversight has been thrown out the window along with concern for safety.  Mattel was caught in one of the largest recalls this fall because it simply was not paying attention to the products it was sourcing in China for it’s multiple lines of toys.  The use of lead paint by Chinese manufacturers resulted in the recall of millions of  Mattel’s toys. 

Neither is the federal government working for more oversight.  ”Congress has outsourced its oversight of trade and safety policy to President Bush and developing nations’ inadequate safety systems, both of which have proved either unwilling or unable to protect kids safety,” said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook.

Thankfully, there is a modest, but growing alternative to Santa’s sweatshops overseas — Fair Trade.   If you are looking for the latest X-box so that your kids can play video games, we have not come that far yet.  But if you appreciate simple toys that are safe and fairly produced, our shop, and others like it, are a great alternative.  

It’s easier than ever to pass up sweatshop toys in favor of sustainably made goods.  Beyond using the power of your purse, you can help by pushing for trade policies that make all trade more fair and responsible.  

Keeping shopping your good values! 

Kile

One of the great things about Fair Trade is that when you give fairly traded gifts for the holidays, you are really giving twice.   Your friends and family get beautiful handmade gifts from the far corners of the globe and you give to the artisans, workers, and growers with a living wage and sustainable work environment.  

Last week, I mentioned the Arghand soap from Afghanistan that we offer.   Well, it’s a prime example.   Many people have stopped by to pick out beautiful packages of soap to give as gifts.   The stone-shaped pieces of soap, made from local materials including mountain herbs and flowers and local oils from almonds and pomegranates, are a great gift for anybody, but those purchases also sustain men and women in that war-torn country. 

Each piece of soap represents hope for the future as they struggle to overcome decades of war and civil strife.  The people of Afghanistan are in desperate need of alternatives to poppy growing.  Unfortunately, the drug trade has taken center stage once again with record poppy crops under cultivation.  

Your fair trade gifts do have the potential to change the world.   Arghand soap is but a small part of the growing alternative of fairly traded products.  We have jewelry that gives living wages to artisans in Ecuador, furniture from salvaged hardwoods that save trees, coffee that sustains families in Ethiopia — and that’s just a small sample.  

So give fair trade for the holidays and give twice.

Keep shopping your good values! 

Kile