Take Action: Oppose Free Trade Agreements & Fast Track Renewal

I just returned from a delegation to El Salvador about a week ago. U.S. influence, through CAFTA and other means, over El Salvador's now dolarized economy has had disastrous effects on the poor of this small, densely populated Central American country (about the size of Massachusetts packed with around 7 million people). Many of the producers and activists our group had the opportunity to speak with stated that El Salvador no longer has any viable crops that trade well on the world market. Coffee and other commodities are no longer the strong exports they once were due to changes in market prices & oversupply problems in the global economy, in addition to agricultural subsidies awarded to farmers in the U.S. and Europe that aggravate already pronounced trade imbalances. One mantra we heard repeated time after time is that currently El Salvador's biggest export is people. According to an investigation performed by the Jesuit University of Central America (the UCA), 700 people (finding no options for enough work to feed their families) leave El Salvador headed for the United States every day. Many end up stuck in Guatemala or Mexico along the way. Last year 14,000 Salvadorans were deported by the U.S. government. Deported individuals are often viewed as outcasts and sometimes criminals in the communities they return to. So, the primary contribution to the Salvadoran economy now (like the experience of Mexico/NAFTA) -- supporting many poor families in El Salvador at varying degrees -- is the arrival of remittances from family members in the U.S.

Remittances have created a new system of dependence on family incomes now being earned in the U.S. -- income that is not able to be gathered or generated by activities in the country due to lack of jobs and inappropriate/insufficient economic policies, programs or infrastructure, leaving many people in the society idle. The main message from everyone we talked to is that migration is destroying the family in El Salvador and beyond that the entire country because of the profoundly negative consequences for the economy. In general, there is a lack of response by the government because of the powerful dynamic of remittances from the U.S. along with other economic directions taken as a requirement of the free trade agreement.

Global Exchange and other groups have launched campaigns in oppposition to the country-specific free trade agreements currently being debated by our Congress aimed at the Peruvian, Colombian, South Korean economies. The U.S. should change its trade policy in order to avoid further complications that stem from a sinfully unfair global trading system that pursues a preferential option for the rich.

The same action alert also calls on Congress not to renew the Bush administration's fast track trade authority. Furthermore, Global Exchange has most recently called for a moratorium on free trade agreements with hopes to force our lawmakers and politicians to revise or remake our trade policy according to fair trade standards and specifications.

Radio Interview: Live From the Heartland this Saturday, May 5

So, in case you haven't noticed by now I'm from Chicago. And this Saturday, May 5, I'll be on WLUW's (88.7 FM) Live From the Heartland at 9 a.m. It's broadcast from the Heartland Cafe in Rogers Park, practically an institution for progressive causes in the city for many years. I'll be talking about the fair trade movement and also have a chance to promote Chicago Fair Trade's World Fair Trade Day event on May 12 (see posting below from 5/1). The interview will likely address some of the differences between "Fair Trade" and "Direct Trade," a new trend among coffee roasters and retailers (i.e., Intelligentsia, Whole Foods, Starbucks). Hopefully, we'll get into some suggestions of ways people can take action to promote trade justice as well. Listen in.

Coffee Cultivation & Commodity Environments

According to “traditional” methods, coffee is grown under a canopy of fruit and hardwood trees that provide a cover of mixed shade (WRI 1998-99, TED 2000). Under ideal conditions, this agro-ecosystem of shade-grown coffee can sustain a large diversity of bird species and small mammals (TED 2000). The agricultural habitat of forested coffee groves involves a small-scale production scheme that provides subsistence opportunities and addresses natural resource conservation goals with the sustainable harvest of shade trees for fuel and nutritional needs. This is in contrast to the dominant, higher-yield production method, which often involves removing forest to plant a monoculture crop grown in full sun. This method, usually referred to as “sun-farming” or “technified” cultivation, requires that fertilizers, dangerous pesticides and herbicides be applied often and has become the preferred approach on large coffee estates and plantations. Sun-farming practices have contributed to coffee becoming “the second-most heavily pesticide-sprayed product in the world (after cotton)” (Cycon 2001). Twenty percent of Guatemala’s coffee area is under technified production, compared with 40 percent in Costa Rica, 69 percent in Colombia, 17 percent in Mexico and 8 percent in El Salvador (Sorby 2002).

On most of Guatemala’s large coffee estates, varieties of high-quality Arabica are grown and harvested on highly managed shaded monoculture plantations, a modernized agriculture, high-density production scenario that requires chemical application, different from the often diversified plots of small-scale traditional coffee farming. The most common shade tree in Guatemala is gravilea (Australian oak), which tolerates heavy pruning for firewood; also, amate admired for the compostable quality of its broad leaves, as well as native trees like cuxin. Other trees common to a rustic, polyculture coffee shade forest include banana, avocado, and citrus trees such as lemon and orange. More and more, macadamia, a nut tree known for its environmental benefits, is suggested as a potential shade tree for Guatemalan coffee, and as a secondary or replacement cash crop. Even growing flowers among coffee is an increasingly common practice with the advent of organic production.

Background on the Coffee Crisis

Attention to environmental sustainability in coffee production has formalized measures for soil and water conservation, including composting, terracing, reforestation and diversification. Indeed, since the circumstances of the coffee industry have worsened with expansive, high-yield production leading to capitalist crisis, a rationale for highlighting and returning to traditional methods of smaller-scale cultivation has emerged in the form of a specialty coffee industry with new markets for “sustainable” and “Fair Trade” coffees. Presumably, commodity environments for Fair Trade and sustainable coffees not only foster an environment conducive to subsistence and family labor, but also to natural resource conservation. In some countries rustic coffee farms have been classified as forests or are viewed as important buffer zones around biosphere reserves. On the other hand, technified cultivation of coffee, by removing pre-existing forest or crops, is viewed as fragmenting the landscape and eliminating the natural capital elements of a seemingly pre-capitalist space. Cultivation categories, like organic and other commercial polycultures, fall somewhere in the middle of a hierarchy of coffee production methods as hybrid forms of agriculture.

A massive drop in coffee prices in recent years has had a devastating impact on the economies of Latin American countries, particularly those of Central America. Though the coffee industry is not unaccustomed to periods of crisis and other market side effects that influence commodity slumps, gluts and booms, the current situation is particularly severe. With prices hanging steady at historic lows for most of the past four years, social costs have been great in many coffee-producing areas. In Guatemala devastating loss of work has led to conditions of starvation and increased migration (Hernández Navarro 2004; Brosnan 2003). Causes of the global coffee crisis can be traced to processes of agricultural modernization and increased competition that have resulted in world over-production as well as a discontinued system of quotas that once steadied the price of the commodity worldwide. Changes in coffee production introduced almost fifty years ago created a trend toward intensive monoculture cultivation on large plantations. Increased yields associated with this production method have contributed to a 200 percent increase in worldwide coffee production since 1950 (WRI 1998). Moreover, in the early 1990s the World Bank advised Vietnam to increase its output of low quality coffee for export. Amazingly, the country has achieved a 400 percent increase in production over approximately 10 years (Eco-Exchange Jun-Jul 2001).

In its 2002 report Mugged: Poverty in Your Cup, Oxfam International determined that global coffee exports had fallen by $4 billion over five years (Sep 2002). Rainforest Alliance reports that in countries like Guatemala, where coffee has been the leading export for decades and “700,000 families or 20 percent of the population have coffee-related jobs,” total exports fell by a half in the first year of the coffee crisis (Eco-Exchange Jun-Jul 2001). Guatemala’s National Coffee Association (ANACAFE) estimated a loss of $300 million in revenues as the crisis began (Eco-Exchange Jun-Jul 2001). With thousands of coffee pickers now unemployed, many have migrated to Mexico or the United States in search of work. Indeed, families in the highlands of Guatemala have few employment opportunities other than coffee plantation labor. The Guatemalan government indicates that there are more than 250 thousand unemployed due to the coffee crisis; out of 1.8 million agricultural sector jobs in the country, only 145 thousand have formal employment (Prensa Libre Nov 12 2003). Exacerbated by the dramatic fall in coffee prices, unemployment in agricultural areas of the country has surpassed 50 percent.

Meanwhile, North American consumer campaigns for Fair Trade coffees, with their boycotts and public protests, have propelled Fair Trade advocacy to the status of “pet project of the anti-globalization movement” (New York Times Nov 3 2002). Even so, a 2002 joint report of the Inter-American Development Bank, United States Agency for International Development and World Bank captures the recent tendency of market-oriented development groups to embrace Fair Trade as an acceptable niche solution to the coffee crisis.

Stages of Coffee Production

Fair Trade Arrangements in Coffee Production

According to the Fair Trade model as it relates to coffee production, groups of small-scale producers or producer collectives, as new social movements and innovative participants in the global economy, are said to have the potential to move up the commodity chain and gain control over production and distribution of coffee in markets (i.e. extension of credit and technical assistance allowing for increased control and involvement in stages of processing before export). Hypothetically, this should put certain groups, namely cooperatives, in a position to contest the established regime and challenge elite control over production and social reproduction. Sustainable means of production (i.e. Fair Trade, organic and shade grown) establish new productive spaces that rely on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to replace middlemen and act as social brokers for the guarantee of premiums paid to farmers and certification of Fair Trade criteria. In theory and in some instances, this provides conditions for a sort of assisted autonomy based on a peasant-centered, family-oriented approach that combines economic development with subsistence goals toward self-sufficiency and self-determination.

What is Fair Trade?

“Fair Trade” is gathering recognition as a groundbreaking approach to development, symbolizing the integration of human rights, ecological and economic concerns. Through attention to social responsibility, environmental sustainability and market profitability – the concept of a triple bottom line – Fair Trade suggests potential to make attainable the intent and efforts exhaustively discussed by proponents of sustainable development. As defined by the social justice and environmental groups that support it, Fair Trade promotes the capacity of consumers to change the world based on opportunities for “equal exchange” and “economic justice” achieved through forms of “ethical consumption” that respond to notions of a “popular economy.” Fair Trade is characterized as a “a new ‘people to people’ form of international aid” (Van Loo 2004) that “sidestep[s] world market forces” (Bordreau 2004) and provides producers “a sweet deal” that facilitates “a human link” (Roosevelt 2004) involving long-term commitments of direct trade, as long as there is transparency in the democratic management of cooperatives and public information is made available to consumers (Waridel 2003). Buying products with the Fair Trade label is characterized as “an easy way to make a positive impact” on the lives of producers (TransFair 2003).

An abstract of what's to come

"Fair Trade" is gathering recognition as a groundbreaking approach to development, symbolizing the integration of human rights, ecological and economic concerns. Through attention to social responsibility, environmental sustainability and market profitability - the concept of a triple bottom line - Fair Trade suggests potential to make attainable the intent and efforts exhaustively discussed by proponents of sustainable development. With this blog I hope to explore and evaluate the effects of Fair Trade as a development concept and potential policy trend. What makes Fair Trade "fair" and who defines the notions of fairness and equity from which it is pursued? Is it only just "fair enough" to address the social and environmental concerns of protesters in the anti-globalization movement as well as new categories of "ethical consumers" from wealthy countries in North America and Europe? As a movement, Fair Trade is both a conduit for and response to the content of free trade bashing. Its idealistic supporters see Fair Trade as "alternative," while technocratic interlopers define it as a market niche. The remarks on this blog will include an evaluation of Fair Trade as a sustainable development approach as well as a critical investigation of the practical aspects of implementing conceptual development strategies like Fair Trade, through the analysis of arrangements in coffee production for Fair Trade and other markets. As it currently exists, Fair Trade is the fastest growing niche in the specialty coffee sector, giving consumers the opportunity to express solidarity with their purchasing power while reinforcing a new market-led version of social justice. Many factors influence the reliability of Fair Trade benefits as they are distributed to the producers that participate in markets for these certified, specialty coffees. Producers able to sell their coffees to the organic, Fair Trade market do so according to numerous principles and rigorous standards that respond to consumer preference and quality concerns.

As someone in support of efforts to "make trade fair" (Oxfam campaign slogan), my original intention was to rely on and respond to debates that pit Free Trade vs. Fair Trade, pursuing a sweeping comparison of these divergent trade strategies that would hopefully reveal and emphasize all of the presumed goodness associated with the latter. Yet, on closer examination the progressive force of Fair Trade is beginning to reveal its own contradictions. After all, it is unavoidable that Fair Trade, while promoted as a robustly alternative, participatory and principled approach, functions within a conventional market-based framework, adheres to the same neoliberal logic and follows similar patterns associated with the dominant free trade orientation that Fair Trade activists usually rant about.

Is it time for Fair Trade Plus?

5/12: World Fair Trade Day

I am involved with Chicago Fair Trade (CFT), a newly formed not-for-profit organization seeking to build the movement for fair trade in the Chicago area. For my first posting I wanted everyone to be aware of an upcoming event to celebrate World Fair Trade Day in Chicago.

Join CFT at the HotHouse on May 12. Participate. Help grow the movement. CFT seeks support for its efforts to raise awareness of the need for trade justice worldwide, including the lauch of a local campaign to make Chicago a "Fair Trade City."

CFT’s membership includes non-governmental and faith-based organizations, fair trade businesses, educational institutions, student groups and individual activists.

Buy a ticket to the World Fair Trade Day event and sign up to become a member today at www.chicagofairtrade.org!