Editorials

It was the village of Bipoa in the Kumasi region of Ghana which helped provide the inspiration for the Cadbury Dairy Milk move to Fair Trade. Bipoa is set in the heart of Ghana’s cocoa growing area in the Kumasi region of Ghana.

I travelled to Bipoa in December 2008 with Martin Hill from the Fairtrade Foundation and Nicolas Adjei-Gyan from Kuapa Kokoo, a Fair Trade co-operative of farmers. Bipoa looks like many other cocoa villages and again, like so many, is reached by a dusty red road. Small children can be seen playing in the village square and chickens run around freely.

Bipoa was one of the first villages to become Fair Trade certified and is part of the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative, with a membership of around 50,000 farmers. The real difference, however, is obvious as soon as one meets the villagers.

There is much to celebrate about Fair Trade. Its dramatic growth and increased acceptance as a legitimate social and economic movement are cause for optimism. That large corporations have started to dabble in marketing Fair Trade products is a further indication of its permanence in the marketplace. For a movement that began as an alternative and which still represents less than .01% of global trade, being emulated by transnational actors is a remarkable accomplishment.

This is, however, far less than the whole tale. The most inspiring aspect of the Fair Trade story remains largely untold. There has been a greater depth of influence and impact than is often explicitly acknowledged.

It’s important to remind ourselves that Fair Trade emerged from a global context which celebrated Milton Friedman’s mantra that the only social responsibility of business was to increase its profits, a philosophy that has today been rejected by almost every credible business and corporation.

Like all great social change movements, Fair Trade is a messy and imperfect project.

A grassroots movement that for some emerged in opposition to global free trade eventually gave rise to an ambitious labeling and certification system that has now grown into a complex global organization. A simple yet powerful idea that began with small scale coffee farmers now spans a vast range of products that includes soccer balls and soon artisanal gold.  From the 1988 launch of the world’s first Fair Trade labelling initiative, Stichting Max Havelaar is today part of a worldwide network of twenty-three certifying bodies, that includes TransFair Canada, and three producer networks within the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations (FLO) International.