Are they imposing the colonial rule of trade?
Fair trade may be about trade not aid but we still have a responsibility to offer a helping hand to farmers and craft makers should they find themselves hit by forces beyond their control.
The story of Fair Trade as experienced by many practitioners and pioneers in the Philippines is unique. It has its own characteristics based on the struggle against dictatorship and the rule of a powerful oligarchy that still dominates the economic and political life of the nation.
It is a positive way to address exploitation and poverty and a response to the invitation of the Northern Alternative Trading Organisations (ATOs) of the North to market products that are produced according to fair trade principles and criteria so as to help create a more just and dignified community.
The goals of the Philippine Fair Trade organisations are in general, to provide just and dignified livelihood, empower people to participate in their own development, work for access to local and international markets.
The fair trade producer group and fair trade marketing organisations (Famous) assist the producers gain interest free capital, improve product quality, get fair prices, provide business training and help implement social development projects and services with the surplus earnings from trading activities.
Almost all of these organisations in the North and South are members of the International Fair-trade Association (IFAT) and accept and strive to implement the guidelines of fair trade . Every member of IFAT is considered a certified fair trade organisation or producer and can carry the IFAT logo on their stationary and promotional material. But not on the products delivered to the market.
Philippine fair trade producers and organisations have been trading according to the emerging criteria for as long as 35 years as the result of a shared struggle with the people for human and economic rights and genuine development.
Some Intermediary Marketing Organisations in the Philippines ( besides adopting those of IFAT) have specific goals and interests.
1. To educate and enable producers to get fair prices better working and living conditions and respect for human and economic rights.
2. Persuade consumers in the south and north to buy ethically and justly.
3. Promote South to South and internal trading between members of IFAT.
3. Challenge the globalisation of the world economy
4. To create competitive ethical trading. Oppose cartels and question Northern labelling organisations that impose criteria , restrict trade and profit from it.
5. Campaign for economic and trade justice and
oppose industries and trade practices exploiting children and women.
Commitment to these Fair Trade principles by Fair Trade Organisations in the South reaches beyond the level of the oppressed or exploited producer . It aspires to change the attitudes of the unthinking and mindless consumers of North and South. They buy products based on self-interest and without conscience or conviction as to the source of the products or the means by which they are made.
Confronting trans-national corporations.
These goals are to bring about Fairness, or economic Trade Justice and they reach also to the world stage where global trade is unjust and unfair. The wealthy Translational Corporations (TNCs) and governments of developed countries backed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) dominate the markets by protecting their own farmers and producers by giving them huge subsidies and allowing them to over produce.
They are doing all they can to get developing nations like the Philippines to lower their import duties and open their markets to these subsidised products. product dumping of product produced below cost is destroying the livelihood off small scale producers. The trans nationals invest in the developing nations to avail of low wages weak environmental laws and to pay low prices for the raw materials and commodities.
Economic and environmental concerns.
As I write this hundreds of people have been buried in land slides in St. Bernard Leyte There have been similar man-made disasters in recent years. We immediately understand that the loss of life and the human suffering is caused by deforestation caused by the political elite that enrich themselves and bring death to others. These are the biggest threats to thousands of rural poor where fair trade producers and organisations are trying to better the lives of the people.
Producers of crafts, wood products and farmers are the most affected by environmental destruction caused by logging and mining. Logging with permits or without is one example whereby the Philippine and international business elite destroy the livelihood of the poor. Powerful political families get the ³rights² and permits from friends and family members in government. They own logging and mining corporations with foreign participation and ownership and they plunder the forests. Local politicians protect loggers provided they get a payoff.
Saving the environment.
As a result Indigenous people are driven from their ancestral forests and lands by military who stop their protests while enforcing the logging rights of the corporations. The local people are denied access to their ancestral lands and forests the source of raw material for crafts, basket weaving, wood carving, native house building and harvesting of forest fruits and honey and herbs. The environmental destruction of the wild life habitat drives away species and removes a sustainable source of food for the people who inhabited the forest for thousand of years.
Some fair trade organisations campaign with producers and indigenous people to protect their environment and campaign for their rights to their ancestral lands.
It not enough to sell the baskets and products of the people, we have to be one with them in seeking justice and established their rights. Philippine fair-trade goes beyond just trading. It reaches out in solidarity with the producers and their community.
The purpose of pursuing fair trade working with disadvantaged producers is to help them produce quality products and goods without being victimised by unjust debt,exploitation and receive just and fair payment for their products.
Fair Trade means educating the producers and their community and project leaders to absorb and believe in the criteria of ŒFairness². This concept of Fair-trade includes human and community development designed to engage them in reflection on their life system and family and community relationships where exploitation does occur. It is to help them to develop a healthy community and family life by education, persuasion and economic and social benefits where there is respect for the rights of all.
Philippine Fair Trade Forum.
Producers in the Philippines are organised under the Philippine Fair Trade Forum. They strive to expand the job creation by improving market access for the producer groups in the local market. They want to be known as Fair traders and their products recognized as ethical and justly produced. Does that mean that all other commercial producers and manufacturers who do not follow the criteria of fair trade as announced by IFAT are unjust traders and exploiters.?
This is the issue facing fair traders everywhere. Fair-trade labeling companies are exerting more and more influence in the market by declaring that only their criteria and their label are credible guarantees of fair trade practice. These companies earn profits by claiming to guarantee a product is truly fair-trade. They lay down the dogma of what is fair trade and who are the saints and who are the sinners. This arrogance is being challenged by members of IFAT.
MULTINATIONAL AND KNOWN EXPLOITERS GET A FAIR TRADE LABEL. One reason is that multinational corporations , or companies with only one product that hte advertise as Fair trade such as Nestle that got the FLO Fair trade label. , or Chiquita banana trying to get the certification of FLO, that gets the fair-trade label use it to claim they are a certified fair-trade company. Whereas they may have a track record of exploitation and worker abuse.
This is causing much tension within the fair trade movement as labeling companies which are big business and earn huge profits, claim a monopoly on fair-trade virtue declaring what product is fairly traded and by implication and exclusion which one is not. Their power and profit comes from advertising the label and convincing the public that only products with their label are fair traded products. But do they have the authority to set up and monitor these standards? Are they taking on over the regulatory duty and function of government? In the end the government regulators may determine the standards of fair trade like they do everything else.
Fair-trade is much more a movement of the Northern countries. Philippine producers are also conscious of their own identity and increasingly explore the possibilities of developing a fair trade consciousness among consumers in the Philippines as well as expanding their presence in the local market.
The identity and voice of the fair-trade movement in the Philippines is strongly and effectively articulated through the Philippine Fair-trade Forum an organisation of producer groups and Fair-trade organisations together with it¹s partner organisation the Advocate of Philippine Fair trade Inc. (APFTI). In May 2004 they opened a national advocacy and awareness building campaign for fair trade in the Philippines on World Fair Trade Day .
However strong it is as a advocate of fair-trade it will be an uphill climb to establish ethical and conscientious buying by the public. The task is daunting and while many bold efforts have been made much has yet to be done. Fair-trade producer groups through the Forum hope to find a solidarity market with NGOs,trade unions and Filipino first organisations but so far have not succeeded. The competition and sheer dominance in advertising , product distribution,and the low price of mainstream products is overwhelming.
International cooperation with Preda Fair trade
Members of Setem a Catalan based organization in barcelona Spain travel to the Philippines yearly do so to experience firsthand the conditions of life among the poor and strengthen their commitment to higher values and fair trade principles. They have a greater appreciation of reality than the monied elite of the Philippine upper class. They can see Forrest hand the benefits of PREDA Fair-trade to the farmers and vulnerable people.
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