Question

What is fair trade? How can we make sure our food is more safe and even safe for the people who work in the food industry globally?

Answer 1

DEFINITION OF FAIR TRADE:

• Fair trade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. By requiring companies to pay sustainable prices (which must never fall lower than the market price), Fair trade addresses the injustices of conventional trade, which traditionally discriminates against the poorest, weakest producers. It enables them to improve their position and have more control over their lives.
• With Fair trade you have the power to change the world every day. With simple shopping choices you can get farmers a better deal. And that means they can make their own decisions, control their future and lead the dignified life everyone deserves.
• Fair Trade products are a hot commodity. The British newspaper The Guardian reports that global sales of Fair Trade products rose by 15% in 2013, reaching a total of £4.4 billion ($6.55 billion). Worldwide, the Fair Trade movement that year supported more than 1.4 million farmers and workers in 74 countries.

Principles of Fair Trade :

• Organizations involved in Fair Trade, including Fair Trade USA and the Fair Trade Federation, have outlined several basic principles for both buyers and sellers to follow:

1. Direct Trade :

• Fair Trade importers work with producers as directly as possible. Cutting out the middleman enables the importers to pay the farmers a larger share of the money their products will eventually fetch on store shelves. Fair Trade importers often deal with collectives – groups of small-scale growers who run their own farms with little or no hired labor. To meet Fair Trade standards, the collectives must be democratically run, with each farmer getting a vote, and must split their profits equally among all the members.

2. Fair Price :

• Fair Trade guarantees farmers a reasonable minimum price for their crops, no matter how low the market price falls. Buyers promise to pay producers promptly for their goods, and producers promise in turn to pay a fair wage to all their workers. Buyers also extend credit to their producers – for instance, paying them in advance of the harvest – to make sure the producers have all the resources they need to turn over their goods on time.

3. Decent Conditions:

• Fair Trade requires that farmers provide safe and healthy conditions for their workers. It also bans all use of child labor and forced labor, which are widespread in many parts of the world – particularly on cocoa plantations, as CNN reported in 2012. Fair Trade rules ban all forms of worker abuse, harassment, and discrimination, including discrimination based on political affiliation or union membership.

4. Respectful Relationships:

• Fair Trade promotes open, honest communication among producers, buyers, and consumers. Fair Trade dealers do their best to give growers the information they need about market conditions, share what they know about the best growing practices, and provide technical assistance when needed. Importers seek to build long-term relationships with growers and work with them to solve any problems that come up.

5. Community Development :

• On top of the regular price for their goods, growers earn a Fair Trade Premium to invest in their communities. For coffee, for instance, they get paid an extra $0.20 per pound, plus an extra $0.30 if it’s grown organically. These funds go toward projects like building new schools, providing scholarships, improving nutrition and healthcare, and digging wells. Farmers can also invest the money into their businesses, spending it on irrigation for fields or on organic certification, which can enable them to earn higher prices for their crops in the future.

6. Environmental Sustainability :

• Although not all Fair Trade products are organic, farmers are required to use sustainable growing practices that protect natural resources, including water, soil, and natural vegetation. The use of pesticides and fertilizers – particularly the most harmful ones – is restricted. Farmers also pledge to use energy efficiently and manage waste properly, reducing, reusing, and recycling whenever possible. The use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is specifically banned for all Fair Trade products.

7. Respect for Local Culture:

• Fair Trade dealers promise to respect the cultural heritage of the growers they work with. Instead of forcing them to adopt the latest, most efficient methods for growing or producing goods, they allow them to follow their traditional practices, while also teaching them about new techniques. In this way, growers can keep their traditions alive while still increasing their production to keep up with the market’s demands.

Food is more safe and even safe for the people , work in the food industry globally :

Basics of Standard and safety :

• Article 20 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) allows governments to act on trade in order to protect human, animal or plant life or health, provided they do not discriminate or use this as disguised protectionism.
• In addition, there are two specific WTO agreements dealing with food safety and animal and plant health and safety, and with product standards in general. Both try to identify how to meet the need to apply standards and at the same time avoid protectionism in disguise.
• These issues are becoming more important as tariff barriers fall — some compare this to seabed rocks appearing when the tide goes down. In both cases, if a country applies international standards, it is less likely to be challenged legally in the WTO than if it sets its own standard.

How food safety is safe :

Let us take a problem:

Problem: How do you ensure that your country’s consumers are being supplied with food that is safe to eat — “safe” by the standards you consider appropriate? And at the same time, how can you ensure that strict health and safety regulations are not being used as an excuse for protecting domestic producers?

1. A separate agreement on food safety and animal and plant health standards (the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Agreement or SPS) sets out the basic rules.
2. It allows countries to set their own standards. But it also says regulations must be based on science. They should be applied only to the extent necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health. And they should not arbitrarily or unjustifiably discriminate between countries where identical or similar conditions prevail.
3. Member countries are encouraged to use international standards, guidelines and recommendations where they exist. When they do, they are unlikely to be challenged legally in a WTO dispute. However, members may use measures which result in higher standards if there is scientific justification. They can also set higher standards based on appropriate assessment of risks so long as the approach is consistent, not arbitrary. And they can to some extent apply the “precautionary principle”, a kind of “safety first” approach to deal with scientific uncertainty. Article 5.7 of the SPS Agreement allows temporary “precautionary” measures.
4. The agreement still allows countries to use different standards and different methods of inspecting products. So how can an exporting country be sure the practices it applies to its products are acceptable in an importing country? If an exporting country can demonstrate that the measures it applies to its exports achieve the same level of health protection as in the importing country, then the importing country is expected to accept the exporting country’s standards and methods.
5. The agreement includes provisions on control, inspection and approval procedures. Governments must provide advance notice of new or changed sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, and establish a national enquiry point to provide information. The agreement complements that on technical barriers to trade.