Global Policy Forum

by John Vidal

Awareness of how and where goods are produced has soared - and so has the fair trade movement.

The Chocolateer and Cocobanana groups of teenagers on Teesside may not recognise themselves as leading a worldwide social revolution, but in a small way they are. Every week, these two small cooperatives challenge the whole economic thrust of economic liberalisation and ignite a miniscule revolution in people's shopping baskets. How? Just by selling among their communities fairly traded chocolate and fruit grown by small producers in Africa or Latin America who are fighting to survive in a global trading system loaded against them.

Every generation or so a social idea finds its time. The environment shot to the top of public concern in the 1980s, and in just 15 years became a giant industry. For more than 30 years, organic food bumped along the agricultural bottom, appealing to just a few pioneers, before it was catapulted in the 1990s into a £1bn-a-year business in Britain.

Now comes fair trade food - the idea of consumers paying a guaranteed price and a small social premium to groups of small producers growing mainly commodity goods such as coffee, tea, chocolate and fruit. What began, it is thought, with Oxfam importing a few handicrafts in the 1950s and grew with Dutch consumers linking directly with small coffee growers in Mexico and Nicaragua in the 1970s, could be on the verge of becoming a significant economic force.

The statistics are compelling. Sales of certified fair trade foods are growing exponentially and have more than tripled in three years. From next to nothing in 1994, British sales are now worth £58m a year - roughly where organics were in 1986 before they went stratospheric. That turnover may be little more than what one major supermarket outlet trades in a year, but there is every sign that consumers, producers and retailers are convinced it will develop significantly.

If organic food was boosted by food scares, environmental concern and unease at industrial-scale agriculture, fair trade food has appealed directly to people's sense of social and economic justice. One of the main impetuses for its growth, says Harriet Lamb, director of the Fairtrade Foundation, has been globalization and new awareness of its downsides. World trade has burgeoned sixfold since 1990, but even the World Bank and the most ardent neo-liberal governments have recognised that there have been heavy losers. The world price of most commodities is today little more than it was 20 years ago, and millions of third world farmers have no option but to trade at a loss.

"As globalization happened, people understood more where their food was coming from and were really shocked to discover the conditions of the people growing it," says Lamb. "Trade became a major issue in the 1990s. Seattle [and the World Trade Organisation] underlined the importance of what was happening on the other side of the world. The development charities have now put trade at the centre of their work. It has all added to the growing sense of unease about the world."

It is today one of Britain's most active grassroots social movements. Eight years ago, fair trade was promoted only by development charities and the churches - which remain its core constituency - but it is now moving rapidly into schools, local authorities, companies, canteens, and supermarkets, and is backed by unions, celebrity chefs, rock stars and politicians. Next week, more than 4,000 events during Fairtrade fortnight will help push the idea further.

Even as Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, tosses a Fairtrade pancake, London will announce its bid to join 80 British towns intending to commit themselves to selling and promoting it. To be accepted, as 12 towns already have been, Fairtrade food must not only be sold in a certain percentage of outlets but communities must undertake to increase sales each year. Meanwhile, Fair Isle in the Shetlands is hoping to become the world's first Fairtrade island.

The message that anyone can challenge the dominant world trading system is getting through. Fairtrade brands now account for 14% of the total UK roast and ground coffee market. We drink 1.7m cups of fair trade tea, coffee and cocoa a day and eat 1.5m fairly traded bananas a week. Three years ago, just 12% of people polled recognised the Fairtrade certification symbol. Today, without advertising, 27% do. Fourteen per cent of people who buy Fairtrade, say they heard about it from friends. "It's no longer just for middle-class and well-educated people," says Lamb.

Led by consumers, more and more producers are jumping in. Five years ago, they offered just a handful of hard-to-find, often poor quality products, and the choice was Stalinist. Now there are more than 100 products, ranging from tea, coffee and bananas to sugar, wine, honey, fruits, juices, snacks and biscuits, chilli peppers and meat. Coming next are fair trade clothes and textiles, and fair trade footballs. As with organic food, once the wagon starts rolling, the choice increases dramatically. "Fair trade is inexorably moving mainstream," says Lamb. "Our aim is to make the products available everywhere - supermarkets, work canteens, coffee bars, cornershops, hotels, bed and breakfasts, healthfood shops, clubs, hospitals, wherever. More and more people want to choose it, but they cannot unless they are offered it."

To go truly mainstream, though, fair trade must occupy more than a remote shelf in a supermarket. There are the first signs that that is happening as the Co-op and Safeway supermarkets start their own fair trade lines. "We are finding growth more sustainable than organic foods," says a Co-op spokeswoman. "It has sold way beyond our expectations. Sales are growing consistently and we are switching all our own-brand chocolate to fair trade." She expects to immediately double the UK's annual £3m sales of fair trade chocolate.

Worldwide sales of fair trade products are now thought to be close to £300m a year. European sales are growing 20% a year, with Switzerland still fair trade's biggest market. Britain has overtaken Germany and Holland, while the US - after a slow start - and all the 17 countries that sell them, report significant increases. New initiatives are about to start in Greece, Spain and Australia, as well as in developing countries such as India, Mexico and the Philippines.

Lamb sees Fairtrade moving into areas such as manufactured goods, and becoming a trusted independent standard not just for quality but for socially responsible goods. "Fairtrade is the only standard that brings producers and consumers together," she says. "It enables consumers to express their preference for a different system of trade and gives power back to the producers instead of just imposing on them standards that salve consciences here. It still has the potential to grow significantly."

Details of Fairtrade fortnight events at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/fortnight2003/index.htm.

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