Small farmers in developing nations have little market power. Fair Trade can be a private sector mechanism for increasing the power of these farmers to allow them to better shape their world in ways that suits them.
I liked it. In fact, I'm going to try to get into it.
I think that, if really done well, Fair Trade local companies selling to international Fair Trade buyers could become the way economic growth could really connect with the rural African poor. If supporting a Fair Trade system that suitably gets rural farmers into the flow of international exporting could be the policy goal of Canada's foreign affairs/international relations (instead of haphazard projects littered across the African landscape) some change could really start to happen.
I'm looking to apply to a Canadian grant, the Gordon Global Fellowship, to learn more about the relevant policy challenges and try to connect the micro-level small farmers of Malawi with the macro-level flow of international trade.
Of course, this whole started grew out of a single well-written article--probably time to do more digging.
Just wondering – you seem keen on the Fair Trade side, what do you think the advantages/disadvantages are for working on VC’s in general versus working on developing fair trade value chains?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I’ve seen, Fair Trade value chains are limiting because of two things – first off, they’re bureaucratic (both registering and staying registered requires time and money) and they are only able to sell to the niche market who wants to buy fair trade. The first point is by far the stronger one – and soon I’ll send out a document on why a company like forest fruits would actually jeopardize its viability by becoming fair trade.
malawian sugar is already being sold internationally under the fair trade brand.
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