People's Recovery, Empowerment and
Development Assistance Foundation, Inc.

WHAT if you could, simply by buying something, help poor families improve their lot, communities achieve self-reliance, and the nation as a whole reach higher levels of development?

What if you could, simply by making the right choice while shopping, help promote fair living wages for workers, eradicate child labor, ensure fair working conditions for all workers, especially women workers, and protect the environment?

Well, these aren't "what if's" anymore. Through the international Fair Trade Association (IFAT), fair trade organizations around the world are linking small producers and buyers in an exchange of goods and services meant to create opportunities for "producers who have been economically disadvantaged or marginalized by the conventional trading system." 

Linking hundreds of farmers organizations, cooperatives, collectives and small entrepreneurs with traders and retailers, fair trade organizations promote the marketing of products whose producers have undergone strict monitoring and certification that guarantees they not only produce quality products in an environmentally friendly manner, but that they also pay their workers fairly, provide a safe and healthy working environment, and pay men and women workers equally.

Indeed, if the "Good Housekeeping" seal has become synonymous with quality and safety, the IFAT Global Mark, which certified fair trade groups are allowed to carry, may well become the seal for, as the Asian Fair Trade Alliance slogan goes: "Quality that Cares."

These are the fair trade guarantees: fair pay, allocation of social premium, health and safety in the workplace, fair and sound employment conditions for children and women, human development in the workplace, responsible environmental practices, and the promotion of fair trade.

So imagine, just by doing a "small' thing as buying a product from- any of the 22 members of the local fair trade organization, you would already be helping promote "big" social issues.

CONSUMER awareness of fair trade practices is not such a big thing yet in the country, but it's quite ingrained among consumers in Europe, I'm told, and taking hold in the United States as well.

Already, such large international outfits like The Body Shop and even Starbucks have enshrined fair trade in their business practices. The Body Shop makes it a point to source majority of its products from manufacturers and community groups in developing countries, helping them develop their product quality and packaging while ensuring their trade contains a "social premium," such as supporting orphans or assisting in the development of communities.

Starbucks has a special niche for "fair trade coffee," coffee sourced from manufacturers and traders that have undergone the fair trade scrutiny.

Locally, from a scan of the membership of the Philippine Fair Trade Forum, one can be a socially responsible consumer of such items as muscovado sugar, handmade paper, bamboo craft, native weaves, coffee and foodstuffs from upland communities, dairy products, fruits and even organic rice and vegetables.

"At present, we're talking about a very small proportion of the global trade," says Alex Hermoso, chairman of the Philippine Fair Trade Forum. "But if we're successful, we can prove that trade can work for small producers, that they don't have to settle for or ruinous conditions just because they're small."

LAST month, the Philippines became the third stop in a global journey of the "FTO Mark," a banner that carries the symbol of fair trade organizations, through all the countries where IFAT has members and carried by FTOs and their supporters on foot, bicycle or any transport (elephant, camel, rickshaw, boat) where the banner can be seen by everyone.

The FTO Mark was first received in Davao City through a Farmers' Forum on Fair Trade. From Mindanao, the Mark was passed on to the Visayas and paraded in Bacolod, Iloilo and Cebu. In Manila, the FTO Mark was displayed through a motorcade that started at the Quezon City Memorial Circle and culminated in a "send-off party" at the Conspiracy Bar along Visayas Avenue in Quezon City.

The objective of the Global Journey is to raise awareness about fair trade principles and the issues it seeks to address and promote. The Journey is also a means by which IFAT member groups could promote themselves as fair trade organizations and their products as well.

HERMOSO says the challenge facing fair trade organizations, especially the producers, is to upgrade their quality, their "capacity to meet mainstream standards."

Good intentions and laudable principles, after all, are no excuse to produce products that are of shoddy quality or worse, unsafe and unsanitary.

Part of the goals of fair trade, after all, is to give their products an "edge," where the consumer, all things being equal, will be convinced to buy fair trade products because not only are they of equal quality and competitive price, but also because buying them will result in a social good.

Unfortunately, under present circumstances, buying fair trade products is not always easy and convenient, nor are they necessarily of the same or better quality than their commercial counterparts. It seems FTOs have their work cut out for them, for in the battle for the consumer's eye and wallet, good intentions are not enough. 

By Rina Jimenez-David

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