Global Policy Forum

By John Vidal

Social movements begin in the most unlikely places. Fair trade was hardly heard of five years ago but Garstang can claim to be the birthplace of a new economy

Garstang in Lancashire is not known for taking radical social initiatives but it can genuinely claim to be the world's first "fairtrade" town. Never mind that it awarded the title to itself three years ago, 90 of the town's 100 businesses, both its schools, its local council, its chamber of commerce, its churches, garages and hairdressers all sell or actively promote food that pays a fair price to small farmers in developing countries, as well as a small social premium.

The idea came three years ago when the local Oxfam group invited the town's bigwigs to a slap-up meal of fairly-traded and local produce. Such was their enthusiam for ethical trading that within months stickers were being printed, public meetings called and people mobilised.

Now 70% of Garstang recognizes the fair trade symbol, compared to a national average of 15%, and the town has officially twinned with New Koforidua in Ghana, a similar sized community that grows cocoa for the fair trade market. Last year Garstang sent a youth group to Ghana to see how hard it is for small farmers to compete in the global marketplace and, next year, the two communities will swap six people, including local hairdressers, a teacher, farmers and schoolchildren for 10 days.

Fair-trade food is taking off. Ten years ago it was only being promoted by development charities in Britain; five years ago there were just a few products available from a handful of businesses; but today, í‚£58m of produce is sold in Britain and the range extends across tea, coffee, sugar, fruit, chocolate, wine, honey, chilli peppers and meat.

But can fairly-traded foods ever go mainstream? Those who think they can, point to the fact that organic food also rumbled along the bottom of retailers' priorities for years before taking off exponentially following a series of food scares.

The same may be happening with fair trade, which is being fuelled by growing awareness in the west at the lack of justice in world trade. International trade has burgeoned six-fold since 1990, but the real price of most commodities like tea, cocoa, coffee, bananas and sugar is 30% or lower than it was 20 years ago, leaving tens of millions of third-world farmers with no option now but to trade at a loss.

The Co-op and other supermarkets are starting to throw their resources behind it, just as they did for organic foods five years ago. In Garstang alone, the local Co-op sells more than 20 products. Worldwide sales are thought to be more than í‚£300m a year and on the point of going mainstream.

And where Garstang leads, others follow. More than 80 other towns and cities, including London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Chester have applied to be fair trade communities, too. They will have to commit themselves to selling certain amounts, serving it in official meetings, and promoting it.

Local vet Bruce Crowther, one of the Garstang's fairtrade pioneers, argues that today's international food trading system is a new form of slavery. "People are suffering to provide us with cheap luxuries like tea, chocolate and fruit. When we look back on slavery we can see it was deeply immoral. It's just the same today."

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