About Fairtrade

FAQ's About Fairtrade

What is Fairtrade?

Fairtrade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay above market prices, Fairtrade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their lot and have more control over their lives.

10 Reasons to Buy Fairtrade

  1. Fairtrade helps to tackle poverty by opening up markets to marginalised producers.
  2. Workers and producers are empowered because they learn how international trade works.
  3. Fairtrade growers are encouraged to protect their environment or go organic.
  4. Fairtrade farmers receive advice and exchange information about growing in the uncertain seasons and conditions such as droughts increasingly being experienced as a result of Climate Change.

A Short History of Fairtrade by Harriet Lamb

1940's

  • Oxfam in UK starts to sell goods made in disadvantaged communities in Eastern Europe.

 

1959

  • Boycott of South African goods in Britain as a protest against apartheid shows how consumer power can mobilise support for justice and social change.

The Jersey Story

In Jersey, Ray Middleton was one of the first people to import Fairtrade products.  A number of people used to go to his shop in Vauxhall St. to get Traidcraft tea and coffee to sell after church on Sundays.  Others used to order direct from Traidcraft till a postage charge of £20 per box made this uneconomic. The Oxfam shop began to sell a number of items and were featured in the JEP in Fairtrade Fortnight in 1999.

States of Jersey Fairtrade Island Proposition

Proposition put to the States of Jersey on March 12th 2004

FAIRTRADE ISLAND

The States are asked to decide whether they are of the opinion –

  1. to support all possible initiatives to enable the Island to be recognised by the Fairtrade Foundation as a Fairtrade Island and, in particular, to agree that :
    1. Fairtrade coffee and tea should be served at meetings of the States and of Committees of the States;
    2. the States should promote awareness of Fairtrade on a regular basis on the States of Jersey website and in publications produced, or sponsored, by the States;
    3. the Planning and Environment Committee be requested, in partnership with the Jersey Fairtrade steering group, to ensure continued commitment to the Fairtrade initiative;
    4. street signs should be erected declaring Jersey as a Fairtrade Island if this status is obtained; and
  2. to request all Committees and Departments of the States to take all appropriate steps to support Fairtrade products in their purchasing policies.

SENATOR J.A. LE MAISTRE

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