Good blog, to try and address some of your points;

First of all you are right that we work with small farmer organisations and cooperatives, and encourage small farmers to form their own organisations. We do recognise that not all farmers are organised in this way. It is very difficult for individual smallholders to add value or access markets on their own, without going through a whole series of middlemen – and also both difficult and expensive to access certification on an individual basis. By organising themselves into cooperatives and associations, farmers can share knowledge, equipment and try to access markets together. It is also important for ensuring democratic decision making of the use of Fairtrade premiums – as the idea of Fairtrade is not that these end up in individual pockets, but are invested for the common good of the wider community.

Regarding environmental criteria, all Fairtrade certified producers are required to comply with the international Fairtrade environmental standard as part of the requirements of certification. The standard requires producers to ensure that they protect the natural environment and make environmental protection a part of farm management. Producers are also encouraged to minimize the use of energy, especially energy from non-renewable sources. You might be interested to read our discussion paper ‘Egalité, Fraternité, Sustainabilité: How the climate revolution must be a fair revolution.’ The Fairtrade movement has always fought to support small farmers in their quest to find solutions to the challenges they face. As the climate crisis looms we will continue to do so. Our experience and networks mean that we are uniquely placed to play a specific role in the global response to climate change.

Regarding your point about communicating the price paid to the farmers, thank you for making this distinction – it is right there is a difference between the price to the coop, and the price to the individual farmer. Our own information talks about the price paid to the producer organisation, and our pricing charts (http://www.fairtrade.net/793.html ) are clear whether the minimum Fairtrade prices refer to farmgate or FOB (free on board). The current minimum price for Fairtrade Arabica coffee is $1.40 plus $0.20 premium – paid to the cooperative at FOB. If the market price rises above $1.40 then the market price applies. You are absolutely right that the cooperative makes its own decision about how much to buy from its members at, and this can vary depending on what services they are running and how much these cost – our audits check that decisions taken about farmer payments are taken democratically with the participation of the coop members.

In response to your fourth point; there are a lot of different people and organisations involved in Fairtrade, from producers to businesses to campaigners, so there are a lot of different opinions within the movement as a whole. From our point of view, where there are producers wishing to sell to a company on Fairtrade terms, and the company is also willing to commit to Fairtrade standards, we should always be open to working with them to make it happen, even if other people do not agree.

Finally, regarding certification fees – as with any certification scheme (Rainforest Alliance, Organic, Fairtrade) farmers must pay for certification, as it involves auditing and visiting farms and organisations, and someone has to pay professional auditors to carry out this work. In the case of Fairtrade, there is a Producer Certification Fund to which farmers groups can apply for up to 75% of the certification fee, if they do not have this money. Farmers certification fees are paid directly to the auditing body, not to the Fairtrade Foundation.

In fact, Fairtrade used not to charge producers for certification – the problem was that this led to a lack of money to pay for the auditors, and a huge bottleneck with long waits for certification. The decision to start charging fees was therefore taken with the participation of producer organisations themselves – it also ensures that they own the certificate themselves, not anyone else. The certification fees for producers are not based on per pound sold (this happened in the past but not any more), but on the size and complexity of the organisation being certified ie. the number of days required for the audit and analysis. Initial certification according to FLO-CERT fee structure would be $2,050 for a coop of 50-100 farmers, rising to $4000 for more than 1000. We’d love to find ways of bringing costs down further in the future.

Fairtrade Foundation

http://ethnicsupplies.wordpress.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php?p=163#comments

I certainly feel that whilst Fairtrade ahs made huge strides to make things better for farmers, more could done to make things more equitable, and that certification feen should go, as a start

Re: having to deal with different organizations for many countries.
That’s was largely fixed years ago. For ex, manufacturers only need to get one certification for all of Europe. However, the US & Canada do still operate their own seals.

Re: the seeming hypocrisy over Nestlé
The Fair Trade movement, just like the organic movement, and workers rights movements is composed of hundreds of organizations, companies, and now millions of people across the globe. Its unreasonable – and a distraction – to suggest that such a collection should speak with one voice. And while Oxfam & others did push Nestle to adopt Fair Trade standards they had wanted a much more substantial response than the token one offered by Nestle. We, too, took Nestle to task over this. To see the fully elaborated argument see: http://www.wedge.coop/newsletter/article/630.html

Re: only the commodity, & not the processing is certified.
Good point. As one of the dozen or so worker co-operatives working in the Fair Trade movement we’d agree that the other stages in the value-added chain should be addressed in some way, whether or not Fair Trade certification is the place for that.
For example, as Zazie says, there is a parallel system (www.ifat.org) that certifies ORGANIZATIONS and COMPANIES, rather than PRODUCTS. Equal Exchange is a founding member of IFAT as well as utilizing Fair Trade certification for our coffee, tea, chocolate, etc.

Other worker co-ops (Cocoa Camino, Planet Bean, & Just Us in Canada, Ethiquetable in France, Alterantiva 3 in Spain) all combine product certification with an alternative, progressive economic model for those other value-added steps you mentioned.

I could also go on about the critical role of co-ops in economic development, etc. but you can just read some of the dozens of academic studies on this for yourself. http://www.fairtrade.net/impact_studies.html & http://www.transfairusa.org/content/Downloads/FairTradeAcademicReferences.doc

I have go back to work now buying and selling some Fair Trade coffee & tea.

For example, the Fair Trade system does address environmental issues. Go to this pdf fro the global umbrella group for Fair Trade & see pages 7 – 20) http://www.fairtrade.net/fileadmin/user_upload/content/Generic_Fairtrade_Standard_SF_Dec_2007_EN.pdf

You’ll see that farmers must address issues like soil erosion, composting, waste-water, and a host of other criteria. They may not use approx. 100 of the most problematic agro-chemicals.

Also, unlike another certification systems, including organic & Rainforest alliance, Fair Trade is the only one that GUARANTEES farmers an extra price premium for going organic. For ex, Fair Trade importers like Equal Exchange have to pay an extra 20 cents/lb if the coffee is certified organic. 20 That’s a significant financial commitment to support organic farmers that no other system requires.

I was working with cocoa farmers in an earthquake and Tsunami-affected island in Indonesia. We only had a two year timeframe. I looked at the whole fairtrade system. GTZ had brought it in Aceh. Well, half brought it in. Well, perhaps a quarter. We decided to give up before we even started, given that we knew that we wouldn’t be able to finish the job.

*sigh*.

Fair Trade seems to be on auto pilot right now and as it comes under more criticism from the coffee farmers who actually get screwed while certified not much will change.