Sold on fairness Activists laud city's support of fair-trade practices

By Chad Cain

05/08/2008- Daily Hampshire Gazette

NORTHAMPTON - When Joe Blotnick bites into a banana, nibbles a chocolate bar or sips coffee, the Peace Corps volunteer does so knowing that in some small way he's helping farmers thousands of miles away crawl out of poverty.

 When Melissa Krueger sells a cup of coffee from her tiny shop on Green Street in Northampton, she takes comfort in knowing she's doing her small part to make a difference in the lives of coffee growers upon whom she relies to earn her living.

And when Alexandra Mello thinks about the women in Guatemala who peppered her with questions about how they can market their weavings to America, she's grateful to have something to tell them.

These three city residents - and others who support the fair-trade movement at the local level - are thrilled to have won the Northampton City Council's backing last month to promote fair trade globally.

The council named Northampton a 'Fair Trade Town,' approving a resolution that calls for the city and its residents to buy products, when possible, certified as fair-trade items. That designation is given only after the farms and factories that produce the products pass inspection for labor and environmental practices and are guaranteed a fair price.

'The resolution is a first step in increasing the awareness of the community that their buying habits make a difference,' said Blotnick, who spent two years helping cacao farmers in the Dominican Republic form a fair-trade cooperative. 'When you buy fair-trade chocolate, you can improve the lives of other people across the world.'

What it means

For the city, that means buying locally produced, fair-trade certified products from locally owned businesses when those products are available and comparably priced. That could mean catering events with fair-trade coffee and tea to exploring whether to buy uniforms.

The city is one of only six communities in the United States to adopt a fair-trade resolution, following Amherst, which approved a similar motion last fall. The four others are Media, Pa.; Brattleboro, Vt.; Milwaukee, Wis.; and Taos, N.M.

'We're on the cutting edge of this international movement, and the real edge of the movement here in the United States,' said Mello, who volunteers as the Northampton fair-trade coordinator.

The Northampton resolution has also added a 'buy local' theme to the campaign, combining the two ideas into a 'buy local/buy fair' slogan.

'We want to raise the awareness, identify where the products can be found, and, when people are looking for a product, try to buy from a locally owned business first. Then if that product is a fair-trade product, try to buy it,' said Mello.

Mello and other backers agree that passage of the resolution is the initial step that will help them raise awareness among shoppers and business owners. Ultimately, the group would like to see a growing number of businesses offering fair-trade products, and for them to include more fair-trade products. There are now 28 businesses selling at least one fair-trade product in the city. Blotnick said it's good for business to give customers more choice.

'We're slowly making these connections,' said Mello. 'In a year, we'll be doing a lot more. We want to get business owners excited, and convince them that more people will patronize their stores if they know the products are free trade.'

Already convinced

Cornucopia, in Thornes Marketplace downtown, is one business Mello doesn't have to convince. The store began offering fair-trade products as soon as the movement began to get traction about five years ago. In the last year the store expanded its product line as demand has grown, said Justin Wentworth, grocery department manager.

'We don't push fair-trade products, but whenever there is fair trade available, I go for that option,' he said.

Krueger also envisions the formation of a coalition in which business owners who want to offer fair-trade products can pool their resources for greater purchasing power.

Fair-trade movement

The fair-trade movement has been gaining momentum in other parts of the world, particularly England, where it began in 2001 as a way to promote awareness of how fairly traded products make a difference in the lives of producers and their communities by providing them with a fair, living wage for their work.

That simply wasn't happening before the fair-trade movement, said Blotnick. 'It's very easy to see when you begin working in these communities that the trade market is unfair.'

Not only were the Dominican people suffering in poverty with little or no electricity or water, but unfair trade practices were taking a toll on the region's rainforest. Blotnick said farmers in the area who could not make a living selling chocolate were cutting down the rainforest in order to plant rice.

During his two years with the Peace Corps, Blotnick and his wife, Jill Higgins, helped cacao farmers create a fair-trade cooperative with the goal of improving the economic conditions of areas surrounding the rainforest.

'We wanted to make a situation where they don't have to cut down the rainforest,' he said. 'The economic systems they had in place are not sustainable. Generations of chocolate farmers were living in poverty.'

Krueger saw similar tales of poverty during her time in the Central American countries of Belize and Guatemala as a Smith College student. 'You remember that. You take it with you ... I didn't work in the fields, but I saw it.'

All the coffee in The Elbow Room on Green Street carries the fair-trade label. Krueger buys her coffee from Orange-based Dean's Beans, which buys the organic coffee it roasts and sells to cafes and restaurants throughout the Valley from a cooperative of coffee farmers in Central America.

'For me, it was kind of an obvious choice,' she said. 'I wouldn't be in the coffee business if I wasn't 100 percent fair trade.'

Mello became interested in the idea of fair trade in the 1990s, when she spent three years traveling in Asia, India, Nepal, and Central America.

'I'd be in Guatemala and the women there wanted to sell their weavings in the U.S.,' she said. 'Or I'd be in Costa Rico and they wanted to know how to market the pineapples they were growing. I had no clue what to tell them.'

Now she has a place to start.

Chad Cain can be reached at ccain@gazettenet.com.