Dance That Fair Trade Dance

Fair Trade organic bananas make their debut with Wedge customers this winter, and in the coming year, Fair Trade organic grapes from South Africa, mangos, pineapples, and perhaps tomatoes will debut in the Produce aisle, too.

"I pushed hard to get the bananas," said Rick Christianson, buyer for Co-op Partners Warehouse (CPW). "I told our distributors that CPW needs them as soon as possible. Hey, Fair Trade is a new horizon. It has great potential for differentiating imported product that supports social justice as well as organics."

In some European countries, one in every five bananas sold is Fair Trade, and in 2002, Fair Trade sales worldwide weighed in at $500 million, growing at a mind-boggling 100+% in Austria, France, and Norway (FLO International, 2003). Understandably, Rick Christianson is eager to start this Fair Trade banana program, though not just for financial reasons: He knows how important a U.S. market for Fair Trade fruit would be to workers on Central American plantations.

To understand the situation, you'll need to hear some sobering numbers: Bananas are the most lucrative fruit commodity in the world, at 14 billion tons sold annually, grossing $5 billion per year. But in Ecuador, the United States' biggest banana trader, the minimum wage for a worker on a plantation is $117 per month, even though the actual living wage in Ecuador is $288 per month. In the desperate gap between those two numbers, the banana industry has built its market, earning damning allegations from Human Rights Watch and U.S./ Labor Education in the Americas Project about child labor abuses, horrid living conditions for workers' families (no plumbing, no electricity), and prevention of workers to communicate with labor unions. In Costa Rica, half of all work-related accidents happen on banana plantations and most of those are instances of pesticide poisoning, according to a report in Ethical Consumer (1997).

"If you don't have any other choices, this is economic slavery," says Hannah Freeman of TransFair USA.

Based in San Francisco, Transfair USA is trying to find economic options for, among others, the banana industry (70% of which is dominated by giants Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte). Late in 2003, TransFair licensed Co-op Partners Warehouse to carry Fair Trade bananas, registering CPW with FLO International (the Fairtrade Labeling Organization) out of Bonn, Germany, connecting the warehouse to a worldwide body of Fair Trade certifiers and inspectors who have offices in over 40 countries around the world.

"We can't make claims about a product being Fair Trade if we can't back it up," says Freeman of this network, which can track product "from crop to cup" (a reference to Fair Trade coffee).

But the most important aspect of TransFair USA's license are the Fair Trade minimum price and the premium of $1.75 per banana box paid to farmers. The minimum price guarantees that better wages can be paid to workers and that the farmers themselves will cover the cost of production. The premium of $1.75/box goes either to the farmers' co-op association (if the farm is cooperatively run) or the labor organization's joint body (think union), which represents the interests of the plantation's workers. The co-op and/or the joint body administer the Fair Trade premium, whose funds are earmarked for special social and environmental projects. In Colombia, Asoproban Co-op used Fair Trade revenues to build a kindergarten for 120 children; in Ecuador, Grupo Agricola Prieto used the Fair Trade premium to fund health programs for its workers, and in the Dominican Republic, banana co-op Finca 6 used the money to become certified organic.

The TransFair USA license also ensures a transparent chain of custody, so that all trading partners, from farmer to exporter and importer to wholesaler, know just how much profit everyone is making, how much product they're selling and to whom. This helps prevent fraudulent claims and price gouging, too, so that you, the shopper, pay a fair price for your Fair Trade products.

Abuses aren't likely as a result of this bureaucracy, Freeman claims. "You'd have to work pretty hard to scandalize this system, and you'd have to spend a whole lot of money to do it."

While opening the Fair Trade market is a great thing for Wedge shoppers, the only weakness Rick Christianson sees is also Fair Trade's strength: a dense bureaucracy. TransFair U.S.A.'s licensing contract, which mainly covers trackability for CPW products, is thirty-six pages long. "It's very complete," says Christianson.

Furthermore, there are quite a few producers ready to sell Fair Trade fruits and vegetables (tomatoes from Mexico, for example), but FLO and TransFair USA are slow to accredit new products. As a result, Christianson says, Fair Trade fruits and veggies may only appear intermittently in the coming year. "It's a dance, right now, not a smooth and easy walk."

But Dean Schladweiler, Wedge Produce manager, says he's dedicated to making sure Fair Trade certified product is on his shelves whenever possible. "Just like us, [TransFair USA] is concerned with sustainability on the farm and for workers on that farm." Besides, the market is ripe, says Schladweiler. "We've had customers asking for years if Fair Trade produce was even a possibility."

Is this all as good as it sounds? Yes, according to Christianson, and his eagerness for The Wedge to carry Fair Trade bananas is infectious. "We've never had this before," he said. "The Wedge has always been proactive about social justice, but now we have a certification label that speaks to social justice in produce.

"I'm very excited about it."

(TransFair USA's label can be seen on many other Fair Trade products at The Wedge like Equal Exchange's Hot Cocoa mix, Choice Organic teas, and Minneapolis' own Peace Coffee beans.)