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Shiny purses made of upcycled candy wrappers, gorgeous handmade journals, intricate baskets woven from telephone wires. All of these are eco-friendly, handmade items that were on display at the California Gift Show, where buyers milled about deciding what gift-worthy items to carry in their stores. This year, an entire section of the show was dedicated to about 20 members of the Fair Trade Federation, a trade association that strengthens and promotes North American organizations fully committed to just and sustainable trade.
I sat down with Carmen Iezzi, executive director of the Fair Trade Federation, at the show to discuss why fair trade products are so inexpensive, how fair trade relates to the buy local movement, and what power consumers have in these economic times.
For fair trade newbies, how would you describe the Fair Trade Federation?
We are the association of fully-committed North American fair trade organizations -- people who use businesses as a tool for sustainable development. All those catchphrases you read now in the press -- business-led development, private-public partnerships, transparency and accountability and advance payment -- I have to laugh. We've been doing this for 60 years! We know that these things create the kind of change that's possible, and they're starting to notice us because it's dawning on all these other communities that the model we have really does work.
So many fair trade products are intricately handmade -- but priced extremely competitively -- which sometimes makes people wonder if the trade's actually fair! Why's it so cheap?
It's the direct relationships our members have. When you see a similar product in a conventional store, one of the things we need to get better about educating people about is how long that chain is -- the 10 - 15 people that are in between you and the person who actually made that item. In fair trade, if I can take those 15 and really make it 5, then I can both return a dignified compensation to the person who made the product, but keep the price competitive to the consumer. It enables both ends to be treated fairly.
How do you see fair trade in relation to buy local movements? For example, a U.S.-made organic T-shirt, in general, is going to be more expensive than a fair trade T-shirt made in India. How do you deal with some of those issues -- especially with people who are making things in the U.S., who feel they're not getting a fair trade.
Some fair trade items that simply don't come from the U.S. Cocoa doesn't grow here. So in some cases, I would say -- You have to import it anyway -- So why would you not want to do it in a way that's based on dialogue and transparency and respect? And for a lot of products -- They come from cultures and traditions that aren't represented here, so it's a similar case.
For items that do have an overlap or similarity, I would say that, first of all, we are both on the same quest to get people to ask more questions about where their products come. So if in the end, if they choose an organic T-shirt made in L.A., versus one that's made in Nicaragua, it's still a victory for both of us, because we got a consumer to say -- What is the impact of the decision that I have made? What kind of power do I have to make this choice? And if they like the T-shirt better that's made in L.A., then that's the way they should go.
We also want people to recognize that sometimes what happens in the U.S. isn't always naturally so perfect. There's a lot of challenges to sourcing fairly here too. If someone chooses a $5 T-shirt from Nicaragua over a $15 T-shirt from L.A., then we need people to understand: Why is this one this way and that one that way? Who is the organization that's brought this to me? That's a long way to say that if there are products that are similar, ask the questions that need to be
