Fair Play
New locally produced PBS film highlights movement for Seattle to be first U.S. ‘Fair Trade city’
By Ritzy Ryciak
Her shift to buying Fair Trade began about five years ago when Vicky Beer became pregnant.
“It is not just about you,” says Beer, the mother of two toddlers and a committed Fair Trade certified and organically grown coffee drinker. “I think having kids does make you more conscious, not only for the future effects but to teach them.”
Fair Trade is a label system with checks and balances to signify the seller has paid farmers, particularly in third world countries, a just price for their product. In this case, “just” means the farmers can cover costs and support their families. The Fair Trade label was established by TransFair USA, a non-profit organization based in San Francisco that certifies Fair-Trade coffee.
Later this month, producers, Hana Jindrova and John de Graaf, Seattle-based, award-winning documentary filmmaker and social activist, premiere their new film, “Buyer be Fair: The Promise of Product Certification," on KCTS-Ch. 9 (March 30, 9 p.m.). The film takes viewers from Oaxaca, Mexico all the way to Holland to show the cause and effects of Fair Trade.
The documentary includes some insights from Matt Warning, an agricultural economist at the University of Puget Sound. He takes on the notion that “Fair Trade” is more sales style than substance.
“Some people have suggested that Fair Trade is just a marketing gimmick,” says Warning. “But the truth is, there is a set of international safeguards to ensure that people are getting the money. Fair Trade is real and it is making a difference in people’s lives. A huge difference.”
Fair Trade, also known as the trade justice movement, promotes international labor, environment and social standards for the production of traded goods and services.
Warning first encountered fair-trade five years ago in Oaxaca, while working on research for his doctorate.
“I saw radical changes,” he says, referring to the community that he first encountered before Fair Trade prices entered their village. “These people who used to go into the cities crouched and afraid were able to lift their head.”
Doing and agreeing
That hold-heads-high result is exactly what Vicky Beer has in mind when making sure her cup is filled with Fair Trade. Coffee is the most visible Fair Trade product, along with chocolate and tea, but observers anticipate the label distinction to make a huge impact among other commodities and goods such as rice, sugar, tropical fruit and clothing.
“With Fair Trade I feel like I am contributing to something that I agree with,” says Beer, while finishing her Sunday morning cup of coffee at Queen Anne’s Caffe Ladro. “It is definitely an issue for me.”
Beer admits to being picky about her coffee purchases and does not like to buy coffee if she doesn’t know where it comes from.
“If I am going to drink coffee I need to do it in a way that I feel OK about it,” she says. “Because the industry and the environmental impacts can be devastating.”
Seattle’s local Caffe Ladro coffeehouse chain offers only Fair Trade, organic and shade grown certified coffees. Ladro’s owner Jack Kelly says the decision to go Fair Trade was a simple one: he couldn’t sleep at night without feeling he was "doing the right thing" for the coffee farmers who produce his beans.
"I’m a simple guy, really," says Kelly, whose knowledge of world coffee issues belies that personal assessment. "I just didn’t think it was right for me to be making more money because of someone else’s plight."
Sybrina Soga, a fellow mother and friend of Beer’s, supports fair-trade but coffee flavor is also important to her.
“I really want a smoky, deep flavored coffee,” says Soga, who admits that she doesn’t know all of the ins and outs of Fair Trade but believes it is a responsible way to purchase.
She adds that when her family moved from the Green Lake neighborhood to Queen Anne, they left Zoka, their regular coffee spot, and were not sure about where to go for Fair Trade coffee.
“I feel like [Fair Trade products] are not marketed well enough and the public is not educated on where to go,” she says.
Confusion about Fair Trade, what it is and whether the money actually goes where it says it will go, is not uncommon among consumers.
“I always make an effort to buy Fair Trade products but there is a part of me that wonders if I am being duped,” says Tim MacCurdy, a Seattle resident and fair-trade supporter.
“Are those farmers really getting the money?”
Part of de Graaf’s motivation for the new documentary is to clear up the confusion. His work is all about showing and not simply telling.
The documentary takes us to England to feature Lancashire, the "world’s first Fair Trade town." Since then more than 100 areas (cities, villages, boroughs, islands and counties) in the United Kingdom have followed suit. Another 200 more are working toward a similar certification.
There are five criteria that a location must meet to be designated “Fair Trade,” including increasing Fair Trade products in local retail outlets and usage of fair-trade products within the city council.
“The governments in those counties actively promote conscious choice,” says de Graaf, who learned, while filming how much more aware Western Europeans are of product certification, particularly Holland, Sweden and the UK. “The government helps make consumers aware of the impact of their choices.”
Money and more
In the documentary, Warning notes that in addition to getting more money for their coffee beans, the Fair Trade system helped the Oaxaca community of farmers get more organized.
“They had more control over their lives and their futures,” he says. “The Fair Trade prices spilled into other aspects of their lives.”
Warning says more than 800,000 coffee farmers are affected by Fair Trade and is especially excited about how naturally these global changes can happen.
“I find it really appealing that people can make a difference without reconstructing their lives,” says Warning, referring to those of us who simply choose Fair Trade coffee over unlabeled brands. “I am for biking and busing but I know that a lot of people are not going to get out of their car.”
Fair Trade products are not an inconvenience, simply an alternative choice.
Warning, along with Fair Trade Puget Sound, a local organization committed to increasing Fair Trade awareness, is currently working with Transfair USA to designate Seattle as the first Fair Trade city in the United States. If the group succeeds our city will hopefully double the availability of Fair Trade coffee and join in the ranks with major European cities like, Edinburgh and Cardiff, capitals of Scotland and Wales.
“This should be a no-brainer for Seattle,” says John de Graaf. “We have Fair Trade Puget Sound. If our businesses and the city government made a commitment we could become a Fair Trade city like many cities in the United Kingdom.”
De Graaf wishes all levels of government would be more active in encouraging people to choose sustainably produced products, not just the city of Seattle. He hopes that “Buyer Be Fair” increases awareness of Fair Trade and product certification.
“I think that it is important for people to understand where their products come from,” he says. “What are the social and environmental implications? Who wins and who loses in the production of the goods that we buy?”
Ritzy Ryciak is a regular contributor to Conscious Choice.
On the Web
Fair Trade Puget Sound: www.fairtradepugetsound.org
United Students for Fair Trade: www.usft.org
TransFair USA: www.transfairusa.org
