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What is Fair Trade?

Zanzibar Trading Company adheres to very strict guidelines on Fair Trade as established by the Fair Trade Federation.  We are also members in Co-op America.  

Zanzibar Trading Company is a SWEAT SHOP FREE ZONE.  We do not sell anything made using child Labor nor do we sell factory or sweatshop produced products. 

Essentially, Fair Trade Means:

NO SWEATSHOPS

NO FACTORY PRODUCED PRODUCTS

NO CHILD LABOR

ARTISANS RECEIVE FAIR WAGES FOR THEIR WORK AND OR FAIR PRICES FOR THEIR PRODUCTS

ARTISANS RECEIVE A LARGER PERCENTAGE OF RETAIL PRICE - ESSENTIALLY CUTTING OUT MIDDLE MEN

ARTISTS WORK IN SAFE WORKING CONDITIONS

ARTISANS HAVE ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE

WE EDUCATE THE CONSUMER ABOUT THE PRODUCTS

WE GIVE THE ARTISANS AN IDENTITY

PRODUCTS ARE SUSTAINABLY PRODUCED AND ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY

BUILDING LONG TERM RELATIONSHIPS DIRECTLY WITH PRODUCERS

CONSISTENT PURCHASES (we don't buy once and they never see us again - we place regular orders)

 

We at Zanzibar are strongly committed to the principles of Fair Trade.  Fair trade is NOT FREE TRADE, however many people make this assumption.  FREE TRADE has to do with lowering import duties or quotas - often for the benefit of major corporations but rarely for the producers or the country of origin.  In many ways FREE TRADE is the OPPOSITE of FAIR TRADE. 

Many of the products we carry come from low-income artisans in over 100 different countries who are paid fair prices for their goods.  We purchase products from small-scale producers who are paid living wages and work in safe and healthy conditions, have opportunities for health care and education.

We also work to educate consumers about the difficulties facing small-scale producers in the Third World and the importance of purchasing fairly traded products.

This provides consumers with the choice to make purchases that directly contribute to improving living and working conditions overseas. This Fair Trade Pledge demonstrates a special commitment to creating a more socially and economically just global trading system.

What Do You Get By Buying Fair Trade?

* The power to foster justice by strengthening the market for alternatives to sweatshops.

* The knowledge that you are improving the living standards of small-scale farmers and artisans in Asia, Africa, Latin America and other developing regions. Every purchase does make a difference.

* The assurance that Fair Trade businesses are meeting the most rigorous standards for ensuring worker well-being and empowerment.

* A selection of unique, high-quality imports not found in chain stores.

* You are supporting environmentally sustainable production methods.

* A grassroots connection to people in diverse cultures in the developing world.

* An opportunity to encourage manufacturers and retailers that deal in sweatshop products to stock Fair Trade products instead.
 


      

WHO REGULATES FAIR TRADE?

There are several Fair Trade Watchdog groups - some are international and others are based here in the USA.  Click on any of the following to go to their websites.  These include The Fair Trade Federation, Coop America, IFAT - the global network of Fair Trade Organizations,  TransFair USA, Fair trade Labelling Organizations International, as well as several others.  Some are specific to food product regulation (ie coffee) while others are more general and deal with handicraft.  Some organizations are specific to their country of origin, while others are global in their reach.  Zanzibar maintains membership in several of these (relevant) organizations and adheres to their principles. 

The Fair Trade Federation (FTF) (www.fairtradefederation) is an association of fair trade importers, wholesalers, retailers, and producers whose members are committed to providing fair wages and good employment opportunities to economically disadvantaged artisans and farmers worldwide.

FTF directly links low-income producers with consumer markets and educates consumers about the importance of purchasing fairly traded products which support living wages and safe and healthy conditions for workers in the developing world.

By adhering to social criteria and environmental principles, Fair Trade Organizations (FTOs) foster a more equitable and sustainable system of production and trade that benefits people and their communities.

Fair Trade means an equitable and fair partnership between marketers in North America and producers in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other parts of the world. A fair trade partnership works to provide low-income artisans and farmers with a living wage for their work.



Fair Trade Federation (FTF) criteria are:

Paying a fair wage and or fair price in the local context.

Offering employees opportunities for advancement.

Providing equal employment opportunities for all people, particularly the most disadvantaged.

Engaging in environmentally sustainable practices.

Being open to public accountability.

Building long-term trade relationships.

Providing healthy and safe working conditions within the local context.

Providing financial and technical assistance to producers whenever possible.


FTF Principles and Practices


Zanzibar Trading Company and FTF members are committed to the following principles and practices in their trading relationships:

FAIR WAGES
Producers are paid fairly for their products, which means that workers are paid at least that country's minimum wage. Since the minimum wage is often not enough for basic survival, whenever feasible, workers are paid a living wage or higher, which enables them to cover basic needs, including food, shelter, education and health care for their families. Paying fair wages does not necessarily mean that products cost the consumer more.

Since Fair Trade Organizations bypass exploitative middlemen and work directly with producers, they are able to cut costs and return a greater percentage of the retail price to the producers.

COOPERATIVE WORKPLACES
Cooperatives and producer associations provide a healthy alternative to large-scale manufacturing and sweatshops conditions, where unprotected workers earn below minimum wage and most of the profits flow to foreign investors and local elites who have little interest in ensuring the long term health of the communities in which they work. Fair Trade Organizations work primarily with small businesses, worker owned and democratically run cooperatives and associations which bring significant benefits to workers and their communities. By banding together, workers are able to access credit, reduce raw material costs and establish higher and more just prices for their products. Workers earn a greater return on their labor, and profits are distributed more equitably and often reinvested in community projects such as health clinics, child care, education and literacy training. Workers learn important leadership and organizing skills, enabling self-reliant grassroots-driven development. Safe and healthy working conditions are maintained and producers gain greater control and decision making power over the use of their local resources.



CONSUMER EDUCATION
Fair Trade Organizations educate consumers about the importance of purchasing fairly traded products which support living wages and healthy working conditions. By defining fair trade and conducting business in a manner that respects workers' rights and the environment, the fair trade movement strives to educate consumers about the often hidden human costs of their "bargains." By providing information about producers' history, culture and living conditions, Fair Trade Organizations enhance cross-cultural understanding and respect between consumers and communities in the developing world. They also educate consumers and policy makers about inequities in the global trading system.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Fair Trade Organizations encourage producers to engage in environmentally friendly practices which manage and use local resources sustainably. Many FTF members work directly with producers in regions of high biodiversity to develop products based on sustainable use of their natural resources, giving communities an incentive to preserve their natural environments for future generations.

FINANCIAL AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Small-scale farmers and artisans in the developing world lack access to affordable financing, impeding their profitability. FTF members that buy products directly from producers often provide financial assistance either through direct loans, prepayment or by linking producers with sources of financing. Unlike many commercial importers who often wait 60-90 days before paying producers, Many FTOs ensure prepayment so that producers have sufficient funds to cover raw materials and basic needs during production time. They also often provide other critical technical assistance and support such as market information, product feedback and training in financial management. Unlike commercial importers, FTOs establish long term relationships with their producers and help them adapt production for changing trends.

RESPECT FOR CULTURAL IDENTITY
Fair Trade Organizations encourage the production and development of products based on producers' cultural traditions adapted for Western markets. They seek to promote producers' artistic talents in a way that preserves cultural identity.


PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY
FTF members' finances, management policies, and business practices are open to the public and monitoring by the Fair Trade Federation.


Fair Trade Facts


Worldwide, fair trade sales total $400 million each year.

In North America, fair trade retail sales totaled $35 to 40 million in 1998.

Of $3.6 trillion of all goods exchanged globally, fair trade accounts for only .01%.

Fair trade businesses return 1/3 to 1/4 of profits back to producers in developing countries.

According to the National Labor Committee, a Haitian sewing clothing for the U.S. market may earn less than 1% of the retail price.

Sales for Ten Thousand Villages, the largest fair trade organization in the United States, grew from nearly $3 million in 1985 to nearly $12 million in 1998. Ten Thousand Villages' Canadian operations reported another $3 million. Combined, that represents the creation of the equivalent of 12,500 full-time jobs for disadvantaged artisans and farmers.

Of its $5.2 million in sales for 1998, SERRV International returned nearly $2 million directly to producers.

North American consumers pay $4 to $11 a pound for coffee bought from growers for about 80 cents a pound. Growers who sell to fair trade organizations earn $1.12 to $1.26 a pound.

Sixty to seventy percent of the artisans providing fair trade hand-crafted products are women. Often these women are mothers and the sole wage earners in the home.

How Fair Trade Organizations Differ from Commercial Importers
Their goal is to benefit the artisans they work with, not maximize profits. By reducing the number of middlemen and minimizing overhead costs, FTOs return up to 40 percent of the retail price of an item to the producer.

They work with producer co-operatives that use democratic principles to ensure that working conditions are safe and dignified, and that producers have a say in how their products are created and sold. Co-operatives are encouraged to provide benefits such as health care, child care and access to loans.

They encourage producers to reinvest their profits into their communities. Many producers who work with FTOs have committed time and money to build health clinics and support other community projects in their villages.

Some Fair Trade Organizations work to shift processing and packaging activities to the developing world, so that as much work as possible will remain in the producer country. Often, such activities are performed abroad, depriving the neediest countries of the opportunity to boost their incomes.

 


Why Fair Trade?


A Brief Look at Free Trade in the Global Economy
From around the world, we hear heart-wrenching stories about mistreated and abused workers who earn meager wages. Or worse, we hear about millions of children sold into servitude or forced to work in unsafe conditions for pittance wages to contribute to their family's survival. Unfortunately, these stories are all too common in the new global economy where competitiveness and profits to stockholders are paramount, and poverty is rising. Increasing globalization, along with U.S. government support for free-trade and investment agreements, are exacerbating three intractable problems that now plague almost every nation on earth: income inequalities, job losses and environmental damage.

Around the world, production, trade and retailing of most goods and services are increasingly concentrated under the control of a small number of corporations. Economist John Cavanagh and Frederick Clairmonte have calculated that just over a quarter of the world's production comes from General Motors, Mitsubishi, Shell, Philip Morris and 200 of the other largest firms. These firms are the primary beneficiaries of the world's rapidly growing trade. As they compete with one another to capture global markets, their primary mode of reducing costs has been through cutting jobs, wages and benefits. Between 1979 and 1992, for example, the Fortune 500 largest firms in the U.S. cut 4.4 million workers from their payrolls globally to remain competitive and keep profits high.

Backed by conventional economists, large corporations have convinced most of the world's governments that they should maximize global competitiveness through freer trade. Corporate and government officials often theorize that free trade will be beneficial for workers, whose wages and benefits can rise as foreign markets expand for their goods and for consumers who can buy cheap foreign imports. Following this theory, new regional trade agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) are reducing barriers to trade and investment for firms. These free trade agreements offer firms global protection for their intellectual and property rights but there are currently no equivalent enforceable global standards to protect workers and the environment. Furthermore, as barriers to entering local markets are removed, large scale manufacturers edge small businesses and local cooperative enterprises out of the market. Local economies suffer when these firms' profits are channeled out of the country rather than being reinvested locally. According to World Bank figures, roughly half of the new foreign direct investment by global corporations in the South in 1992 quickly left those countries as profits.

As a result of these trends, the gap between the rich and the poor has increased dramatically in recent decades. Today, the richest 20% of the world's population has 60 times the income of the poorest 20%. The benefits of trade are similarly concentrated among the wealthiest segments of the world's population and only a handful of developing countries. For example, of the $102 billion in private investment that went to developing countries between 1970 and 1992, 72% went to only 10 countries. Most of those ten were the emerging markets such as China, Hong Kong Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Even in many countries that are currently experiencing high growth rates from expanded trade, the benefits of growth are not trickling down to the poor.

Another problem is that the bulk of exports from developing countries tends to be in primary product commodities, such as sugar, cocoa, coffee, etc., whose prices generally rise much more slowly than the prices of manufactured goods imports. This "terms of trade" decline was particularly sharp between 1985 and 1993 when the real prices of primary commodities fell 30%. This translates into losses of billions of dollars. Free trade agreements do little to enhance the trading positions and commodity prices of these poor countries. In many cases, the world market price for commodities such as coffee and cocoa falls below the cost of production, forcing farmers to sustain huge losses. Fair Trade organizations offer a crucial alternative by paying farmers a price that always covers at least production costs.

FAIR TRADE HAS NEVER BEEN MORE IMPORTANT. The business generated by Fair Trade Organizations in Europe and the U.S. now accounts for an estimated US$400 million, just .01 % of all global trade. Small as it may be, the rapidly growing alternative or fair trade movement is setting standards that could redefine world trade to include more social and environmental considerations. Fair traders believe that their system of trade, based on respect for workers' rights and the environment, if adopted by the big players in the global economy, can play a big part in reversing the growing inequities and environmental degradation that have accompanied the growth in world trade.

Hilary French, author of Costly Tradeoffs: Reconciling Trade and the Environment, reflects the views of many Fair Trade Organizations: "Trade is neither inherently good nor bad. But how it is conducted is a matter of great concern-and an unprecedented opportunity. Trade can either contribute to the process of sustainable development or undermine it. Given the rapidly accelerating destruction of the earth's natural resource base, there is no question what the choice must be."

For Fair Trade Organizations, the choice is simple. Whether trade is good for producers and consumers depends entirely on how the goods are made and how they are sold.

Fair Trade brings the benefits of trade into the hands of communities that need it most. It sets new social and environmental standards for international companies and demonstrates that trade can indeed be a vehicle for sustainable development.

Today, a growing movement of workers, environmentalists, consumers, farmers and social movements worldwide is calling for a different framework for trade. They want a global trading system that promotes workers' rights, protects the environment and sustains the ability of local producers to meet community needs. Together, as consumers, they can make a huge difference by demanding significant changes in the ways goods are produced, and vote with their dollars for a more just and environmentally sound trading system.

BUY FAIR TRADE!  MAKE TRADE FAIR!

If you have questions or would like to speak with us regarding Fair Trade, please contact us!