| The Fair Trade Beat is a monthly update from TransFair USA, the only third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the U.S. The Fair Trade Certified label guarantees that products were produced and traded in an economically, socially and environmentally responsible way. When you buy Fair Trade Certified products, you support the well-being of families, communities and the earth. |
August 2008 |
• Get Involved --- Fair Trade Month, New England Culture Fest
• Tune in to Fair Trade --- Fair Trade Certified Flowers, FTC in YES!, Fair Trade Institute
• New Products and Places --- Fair Trade Honey
• Winning Campaigns --- Fair Trade Coffee Cupping Competition, We Want More from our S'mores!
• Producer Spotlight --- Hoja Verde, Ecuador
• From TransFair USA --- Now Hiring, Donate Today!
Fair Trade Month is coming and we couldn’t be more excited! This year’s theme is “Faces of Fair Trade” and we hope to delve deeper than ever into the story of how Fair Trade is changing the lives of farmers around the world.
Every year Fair Trade Month brings together the many and diverse stakeholders in the Fair Trade movement for a month of exciting and educational events, product giveaways, retail promotions and more. Last year, over 12,000 companies participated, with sales jumping as much as 42% over the previous year. Over 50 million media impressions were made, including articles in major publications like the New York Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the International Herald Tribune, Martha Stuart Living and Shape. And you were a part of making this all happen with more than 150 community events in cities large and small across the country.
This year, it will be easier and more fun than ever to organize an event and tell your Fair Trade story with our new online action center! Starting this September, you will be able to upload your event details and images, RSVP guests and share the story of your successes all with one easy-to-use personal events too. Ready to get started? Register to host a Fair Trade Event today!
Attend the New England Culture Fest
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The Fair Trade Month spirit is already taking hold with major events planned for late summer and early fall in Portland, OR; Los Angeles; and Media, PA. The New England Culture Fest sets the bar high with “the nation’s premiere Fair Trade Festival” taking place Saturday, September 6th in Lowell, MA. With a twenty piece Brazilian ensemble, an African drum and flute ensemble, a belly dancing troupe, an ethical art and business expo, a Fair Trade fashion show, a raffle, an auction, a film screening and an exhaustive list of supporting and exhibiting organizations including TransFair USA, Fair Trade Federation, Oxfam America and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, this is a weekend not to be missed. It’s not too late to get involved! Buy your tickets online or register to exhibit at www.culture-fest.com. |
Fair Trade Certified Flowers from InBloom Group and SamsClub.com were recently featured on NBC Nightly News! "It's a social and an environmental certification," said Alina Alvarez-Alzugaray of InBloom Group. "It ensures that the farmers get fair wages, get medical help, get housing for their children and their families." Watch the video!
YES! Magazine Offers Free Subscriptions for EducatorsTransFair USA is pleased to have been featured in YES! Magazine's Summer 2008 Education Connection Newsletter. The newsletter was based on the Summer 2008 issue of YES!, which discusses U.S. foreign policy, and uses lesson plans from TransFair's Focus on Fair Trade Curriculum . YES! offers educators a FREE one-year subscription to the magazine plus a free monthly newsletter which offers curricula and tools for teaching about social justice, sustainability, and peace. You can sign up here. Not a teacher? YES! has a FREE trial issue for you, too. Apply online here.
FTRN and FTI Launch New Online Resource for Academics
Fair Trade Resource Network recently partnered with the Fair Trade Institute in Switzerland to unveil a new collaborative online resource that makes the world’s growing body of research on Fair Trade accessible to all. Through this interface, they hope to enhance learning and dialogue among academics and ultimately contribute to an improved understanding of Fair Trade and its impact on the ground.
With this tool you can find publications using a new and improved search feature, add your own publication with a link to your article, and make your professional information available to the Fair Trade community. Teachers, students, professors – this is for you! Check out the exhaustive collection of Fair Trade works.
At last, “honey as it should bee” – Fair Trade Certified™ and USDA Organic! From the category leader in Fair Trade Certified organic and natural sweeteners, Wholesome Sweeteners’ Fair Trade Certified Organic Amber and Raw Honeys. These varieties of honey are collected by Fair Trade Certified Mayan beekeepers deep in Southern Mexico’s jungles, where the honeybees browse on native wildflowers.
Wholesome pays a fair price directly to the beekeeper cooperatives for their Fair Trade Certified Honey. The whole community prospers from the honey harvest—it creates meaningful employment, and beekeepers can develop the quality of their hives and send their children to school. By protecting the hives and native plant forage areas, Fair Trade encourages biodiversity and helps the forests thrive. Look for FTC honey on store shelves this October!
TransFair USA is excited to announce the first ever Fair Trade Certified Cupping Competition, to take place this October in Brazil. This landmark event is the first ever to showcase the exceptionally high quality coffee that is produced by Fair Trade Certified coffee growers. Brazil is a fitting place to launch such an event, as it is the largest supplier of conventional FTC coffee to the U.S. The state of Minas Gerais alone, host of the cupping competition, produces more coffee than any other single country! The competition is part of a partnership between TransFair USA’s Global Producer Services department, USAID, and Café Bom Dia, designed to showcase high quality Brazilian Fair Trade Certified coffee and to provide importers and roasters access to the best coffees at origin.
We Want More from our S'mores!
This summer, people nationwide are saying “We want more from our S’mores!” What more could one ask of a delicious, gooey S’more? How about Fair Trade Certified chocolate! Help cocoa farming communities gain access to education, health care and humane working conditions by eating Fair Trade S’mores at your next barbecue, campfire or youth event!
Global Exchange and the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition kicked of the campaign this August with a Fair Trade S’mores Happy Hour in Dolores Park. With Fair Trade chocolate courtesy of Alter Eco, the event was a lot of fun and a big draw to park goers and event attendees alike. It’s not too late to get in on the fun. Register your Fair Trade S’mores event today! You can even videotape your event and upload it to the Fair Trade S’mores YouTube page!
In late July 2008, members of the TransFair USA Board and Advisory Council along with several senior staff members, traveled to “origin” in South America. The group visited flower farms in Ecuador and coffee co-ops in Peru. A highlight of the trip was meeting with workers’ committees at Hoja Verde Farm and Joy Gardens in Cayambe, Ecuador, to hear about the projects made possible from the social premium earned from the sale of Fair Trade Certified roses.
Describing the revolving loan fund farm employee Daniel Arraujo volunteered, “For 15 years I worked on the flower farms with no idea of how I could ever have land or a house. I’ve worked here [Hoja Verde] for four years. Because of the Fair Trade social premium and the revolving loan fund it supports, I now have land, and soon I will have a house.”
The social premium also supports a food buying collective among the workers, computer classes, English classes, youth and health programs, and parenting classes. Central de Cooperativas Agrarias Cafetaleras (COCLA), Peru
Another highlight for the U.S. travelers was observing the coffee harvest on the small shade-sheltered farms of Huadquiña Cooperative, a part of the large federation of cooperatives that make up COCLA, headquartered in Quillabamba, Peru.
The visitors enjoyed gracious hospitality offered by Rosa Borquez de Cuellar, President of Sumaq Tanta, the women’s program of COCLA. Rosa spends every week in Quillabamba (a five-hour bus ride from her farm) to help run Sumaq Tanta’s main project, a cooperative bakery. Over coffee, cocoa, and an array of breads and cookies, Rosa told the group, “For farm women to come off the farm and learn these skills is an amazing experience. The women take the skills and go back to their own villages and start their own small businesses, baking coffee or banana bread or sweets, making and selling sandwiches. I will stay on after my year as President to keep the bakery growing and to start our next project, a women’s labeled coffee.”
Each TransFair USA trekker counted the trip time well spent seeing the tangible benefits of Fair Trade and learning about the products produced with integrity and commitment by our Southern partners.
We're growing! TransFair USA is an entrepreneurial non-profit organization that is the only certifier of Fair Trade products in the U.S. We seek talented individuals who are passionate about our mission and who bring a global perspective to work. If this sounds like your recipe for success, please visit our job listings page and "be the change you want to see in the world". TransFair is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Donate to TransFair USA today!As a non-profit, TransFair depends on the financial support of friends like you to expand our work empowering consumers and producers to build a more equitable and sustainable model of international trade in which all benefit. Click here to make a donation online, or contact our Development Department at (510) 663-5260 or via email at development@transfairusa.org for more information or to discuss your donation options. Thank you!
