Fairtrade utvikling - utdrag fra Fairtrade Norge sin årsrapport

Jeg fant et par tall hos Fairtrade Norge som jeg hadde lyst å dele. Årsrapporten for 2008 viser at det er en stor økning i salg av Fairtrade produkter... men det er langt igjen til at vi kan kanskje kalle det stort salg. Vi har nok en jobb å gjøre :)

I henhold til rapporten ble 2008 nok et rekordår for Fairtrade i Norge. Estimert utsalgsverdi av Fairtrade-merkede varer var over 250 millioner kroner, en økning på hele 73,6 %. Hver nordmann kjøpte i gjennomsnitt Fairtrademerkede varer for 52 kroner, en økning på 66 % siden 2007.

Hmmmm, 52 kr... det er en 1/2 blomsterbukett, eller to poser kaffi. Heldigvis er det en stor økning fra 2007, når hver nordmann bare kjøpte for 31,67 kr, men vi må mobilisere litt krefter for en ennå større økning i 2009. Vi har heldigvis litt tid igjen til nyttår :).

Rapporten sier også at blomster har tatt igjen kaffe og er nå det Fairtrade-merkede produktet
med størst omsetningsverdi; over 9,5 millioner stilker ble solgt for om lag 94 millioner kroner. For dem som har kjøpt Fairtrade roser så vil de se at rosene holder seg langt bedre enn andre roser. Ganske enkelt fordi Mestergrønn har en direkte import fra blant annet Etiopia, og rosene er rett og slett "ferskere", om en nå kan si det om roser... så løp og kjøp...

Fairtrade-merket juice var et annet produkt som gjorde det meget sterkt i 2008; omsetningsverdien steg med hele 125 %. Også omsetningsverdien av Fairtrade-merket vin har mer enn doblet seg, og det ble i 2008 solgt i underkant av 214 000 liter vin hos Vinmonopolet. Omsetningsverdien av Fairtrade-merkede bananer økte med 34 %, og også det mest kjente Fairtrade-merkede produktet, kaffe, hadde en god økning.

Flere og flere har også kjennskap til Fairtrade-merket. Norske forbrukere møter Fairtrade på stadig flere arenaer; i butikken, på kafeen, i kantina, i kommunen, i lokalavisen, på skolen, i annonser og mange andre steder – og kjennskapen til Fairtrade-merket og hva
det betyr er blitt tilsvarende stor, kjennskapen til Fairtrade-merket lå i 2008 på ca. 70 %. Til sammenligning viste en markedsundersøkelse fra 2007 en kjennskap til Fairtrade-merket på ca 53 %.

Uansett, vi har litt igjen før vi kan kalle oss en Fairtrade nasjon, men det er godt å se at det går stadig fremover.

Resten av rapporten finner du på linken HER

Recycling - a challenge?

If anyone thought recycling was a challenge... I think this chinese man is having an even bigger challenge...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/expatriategames/2110500665/

Fair trade or Free trade?

Fair trade or Free trade is a discussion which raises loud and passionate arguments every time it's brought up in any sosical context. Most people have valid arguments for both sides of the discussion. But whatever valid argument is put on the table concerning free trade, I find it hard to ignore that the producer whereever he/she is situated is the main responsible to make sure that the workers are treated fair, equal and are paid living wages.

Most "producing countries" are currently the poorer developing nations. Labour is cheaper, regulations are far from what a western worker and his/her trade union would ask for, and all this keeps again all labour cost lower.

A fair day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay and the price paid to a producer should be at least sufficient to provide for a reasonable standard of living. More than that, workers should have the right to join a trade union and bargain collectively and there other standards to do with such things as health and safety that everyone should enjoy. We like to have our employment protection laws so everyone else should, too.

The Free Trade lobby will argue against this. They say that Fairtrade is protectionist and that the market should be left to decide the price of a product. This promotes competition and efficiency. They would also refer to the theory of Comparative Advantage. Oversimplifying it, the theory says that any two trading countries should do what they are best at and we are all better off.

Besides, simply carrying on trade with a country will help it climb out of poverty. Surely, trade of any sort is a good thing and can only help people over the long term. Foreign trade brings in money and creates employment and that supports the local economy. Given time, such an economy will grow and the incomes, wealth and working conditions of its workers will improve.
Against this, Fairtrade supporters strongly argue that many of the products that are produced by third world countries, like coffee, are highly volatile in price. This makes business planning difficult to impossible and cash flow erratic.

Others criticise Fairtrade as creating inefficiencies in the market, that it lowers product quality because the best produce is kept back for sale on the open market. There are other ways of helping the world’s poor rather than just giving them a reasonable price. Most of the value in a product is added when the raw material is processed and the finished item is produced, but that part of the process normally takes place in wealthier countries. Roasting coffee beans before exporting them would create much higher income for producers but it rarely happens.

One of the problems that Fairtrade faces is that the arguments for it are complex. There are so many facets as to how world trade is organised, subsidies paid by rich countries to their own producers, the relative negotiating strength at international trade talks, the causes of inequality, the effect of globalisation and so on. It is an uphill battle to make these points quickly and succinctly when we live in a world dominated by sound bites.

The good news is that both sides agree that trade is key to helping alleviate poverty in poorer nations. It is just how things operate that separates them. The eventual answer will probably lie in consumers, and how they choose to make their purchases. It will not be easy for consumers, though, should they choose to buy Fairtrade for more expensive items.

Consumers have come to expect low and ever decreasing prices and these expectations need meeting. It is all very well supporting a good cause but the recent spate of well known stores going under illustrates just how real the possibility of failure a retailer can face.

The arguments will go on unabounded but this in itself brings the issues of world poverty and how international trade works out in to the open. Continued debate is crucial in order that everyone can gain a better understanding of the issues and act accordingly :).

From My Fair Trade

Fairtrade shoppers

Fairtrade shopping can be quite funny :) , have a look at the enclosed youtube file

Is Labelling a Threat to Fair Trade?

Denne artikkelen fant vi hos Shared Interest (http://blog.shared-interest.com/), og syntes det var såpass interessant lesning at vi ønsket å dele den med dere :) .

In an attempt to get a foothold into the green and ethical consumer movements, there have been a spate of new ethical certification labelling schemes that have been introduced - fairly traded, organic, shade grown, rainforest friendly are but just a few examples. So, does the introduction of these new ethical labels lead to a more informed consumer?

Research done by Konstantinos Ioannidis, a friend of Shared Interest and Ph.D Candidate at Panteion University in Athens, shows that rather than helping educate the consumer, the opposite is true – consumers are actually more confused than ever before. Not only do competing ethical certifications confuse the consumer, but this competition leads to a devaluation of all marks involved.

The fundamental issue is how do consumers know which certifications are legitimate and which ones are simply marketing ploys that play upon their desires to be ethical? In a recent post from the ‘Labor is Not a Commodity’ blog, evidence was presented that showed that the popular Rainforest Alliance certification had rather dubious corporate connections.

Rainforest Alliance & Kraft

"Kraft has been a Rainforest Alliance “partner” since 2003. Kraft is listed in Rainforest Alliance’s annual report as a donor that gave between $100,000–$999,999 in 2008 and supported Rainforest Alliance events with more than $10,000 in the same year. Former Kraft executive Annemieke Wijn is a member of the Rainforest Alliance’s Board of Directors.

Such strong financial and structural connections between the corporate purchaser between the standard setting and certification group are a conflict of interest, as Kraft has obvious incentives to meet its publicly declared purchasing commitments at the lowest possible cost. It should be of no surprise that Kraft Foods, Inc. was awarded the Corporate Green Globe Award by the Rainforest Alliance in 2006.

Rainforest Alliance & Chiquita

To recover from a weakening market position, Chiquita began working with Rainforest Alliance in 1992 to promote greater corporate social responsibility. By 2000, all Chiquita bananas grown in Latin American farms featured Rainforest Alliance’s happy green frog. This was from all vantage points a good thing, a great step towards minimizing the social injustices that plague large plantation production in the third world. In 2002, with the release of “Tainted Harvest: Child Labor and Obstacles to Organizing on Ecuador’s Banana Plantations” however, the veil was pulled by Humans Rights Watch. The farms investigated in the article, farms certified by Rainforest Alliance, relied on child labor, violated basic labor rights and suppressed attempts at unionization. In response, Rainforest Alliance went back and re-inspected the plantations in 2003, but maintained all their certifications".

This is the kind of evidence that damages the entire ethical certification movement and is a real tragedy for those legitimate organisations like FLO and the WFTO - both of which have done a fantastic job building a reputable brand around their respective labels using a set of transparent and auditable trading standards as the foundation.

So where do we go from here? Unfortunately, I don’t know. Please feel free to share your ideas with us in the comments section.