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1. Use your consumer power to help others World poverty can seem like an overwhelming problem. What can one person do? By buying Fair Trade Certified products, you can turn an everyday action, like shopping, into something that helps reduce poverty and gives farmers and producers a fair price for their product.

 

2. Support education
Many farmers earn so little for their crops that they can't afford to send their children to school, and their children must work to help support the family. Fair Trade Certified goods provide a living wage to farmers and artisans, helping kids stay in school and get an education.

 

3. Empower women Fair Trade encourages women's leadership in cooperatives and supports programs that benefit women. For example, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, the CEPCO coffee cooperative has set up an innovative program to help women coffee farmers, providing training in coffee cultivation and processing, as well as other important livelihood activities. These programs have helped make significant improvements in the lives of the participating women.

4. Keep families together
With today's low commodity prices, small farmers who are not connected with Fair Trade are fleeing rural areas in search of work. Women and children are left behind to tend the fields and kids are taken out of school. Farmers who grow fair trade products, in contrast, earn a living wage that helps pay for their expenses, invest in the future, and keep families together.

5. Support community development
Fair Trade producers and workers belong to cooperatives and community development organisations that invest in better housing, health programs, schools, and scholarships. For example, the Costa Rican coffee cooperative COOCAFE uses fair trade revenues to fund improvements in 70 local schools and has provided 6,700 scholarships to students so they can attend high school and university.

 

6. Protect the environment Fair Trade supports small farmers who use land more efficiently and in a more environmentally friendly way. Traditional small farms contain many species of crop, shade and fruit trees. Fruit trees provide habitat for songbirds and help prevent topsoil erosion and mudslides. Fair Trade helps farmers make the transition to organic farming and the use of more sustainable techniques.

7. Promote democracy
Fair Trade producers and workers belong to democratically-run cooperatives or community organisations. To function successfully, these cooperatives must be open and transparent in their operations. This helps foster grassroots democracy in many countries where many citizens have little experience participating in the democratic process.

 

8. Provide a long-term solution One of the tenets of Fair Trade is that buyers and producers build long term partnerships. Unlike aid, which is dependent on donors, Fair Trade offers a sustainable way for farmers, artisans, and their families to improve their livelihoods.

9. Prevent illegal drug crops
Low coffee prices mean than many coffee farmers cannot make a living by growing coffee alone. This has pushed many coffee farmers to start growing crops destined for the illegal drug trade. Coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived, and chat, an amphetamine-like stimulant, are more dangerous to grow, but more lucrative for small farmers. When they earn a fair price for their coffee, fewer farmers need to switch to growing coca or chat.

10. Promote economic stability
In most developing countries, the majority of the workforce is engaged in agricultural activities. Buying Fair Trade Certified commodities helps to support small-scale agriculture. This can increase a country's food security, making it less dependent on foreign imports. The extra income from Fair Trade products can also help stimulate rural economies.

(Source: This article was excerpted from an Oxfam America document)

If you'd like to learn more about fair trade or get involved, we recommend some of the following organisations and sites: