Fairtrade Town Harpenden Status

A Fairtrade town is a town that has made a pledge to supporting Fairtrade and using products with the Fairtrade mark. Harpenden has detained Fairtrade Town status since February 2008. To achieve Fairtrade town status, society organizations, faith groups, businesses, schools all contribute by pledge to do what they can to support Fairtrade and support the FAIR TRADE Mark.

There are 5 steps that must be taken to be awarded the status.

1st: the Council passed a resolution supporting Fairtrade and agree to serve Fairtrade products in meeting, offices and wherever possible.

2nd: there must be a range of Fairtrade products readily available in the towns retail outlets and served in local catering outlets.

3rd: local workplaces, schools and other community organizations must pledge their support to using Fairtrade products when possible.

4th: there must be significant media coverage and actions to raise awareness and understanding of Fairtrade across the community.

5th: a local Fairtrade steering group is convened to make sure that the Fairtrade Town campaign continue to develop and gain new support.

A short History of Fair Trade Towns

The concept of a Fair Trade Town was well-known in the UK in 1999 when local members of Oxfam in England decided to lift local awareness of Fair Trade by establish the concept of a Fair Trade Town. The campaign wins the support of local businesses, churches, schools, town council and the local media.

A criteria for skill as a Fair Trade Town was created and made dependent on the number of retail stores and cafés supply Fair Trade products in comparison with the populace. There was also a condition for support from local faith groups, schools and the town council. Upon pleasing the criteria, in 1999, town council stated Garstang a Fair Trade Town.

By 2006 there were more than 200 Fair Trade towns in the UK and by 2009 this number had grown to 400, including Dublin, London and Edinburgh. Fair Trade Towns were also appearing throughout Europe, Australia, New Zealand and United States. San Francisco qualified in May 2009. By 2010 the number of Fair Trade towns global had exceeded 600.

In Canada, Wolfville, Nova Scotia was stated, by town council, as Canada 1st Fair Trade Town in 2007. extra smaller communities such as, La Peche QC, Port Colborne ON, Gimli MB, and Golden, B.C. were added in 2009, but to date no cities of any important size. In May 2010 Barrie and Vancouver became the first cities of momentous size to be designated by Transfair Canada as Fair Trade Towns.

The Future fair trade Towns

Conference 

It’s hard to know when you’re in Boston, MA or Teaneck, NJ that there are tens of 1000 of Fair Trade Town organizers across the world. Well, here are some exciting numbers: we have 1,227 affirmed Fair Trade Towns in 24 countries and 6 continents. Imagine if we added the number of in-process campaigns – impressive, right.

In November, 6 delegates from the US skipped across the pond to Poznan, Poland to meet with over 130 town organizers from countries as far away as Brazil and Japan, for the 6th International Fair Trade Towns Conference. Here are my reflection and key takeaways, as well as speech marks from fellow organizers in attendance!

The International Contractor

Currently, there are 19 countries with nationwide Coordinators and, as the Fair Trade Towns movement continues to grow and spread, we are looking to establish an global coordinating body.

There is no doubt that the European Fair Trade Towns movement is years ahead of us in many ways; Fair Trade is fixed in their consumer culture with a much higher level of awareness among the general populace than here in the US. However, our model has desirable features that the National Coordinators are currently allowing for. We have a National Steering Committee that has formed the foundation for our framework to be diverse and complete

While there is a lot of work to be done and many decisions to be made on how and who will organize the global body, it was great to see the movement come together and agrees that we like to see this happen. We will be sure to keep you posted.

Fairtrade Price and quality

The Fairtrade minimum price for usual basmati rice from India is €243 a ton plus €30 Fairtrade social premium and €20 organic premium. The social premium can be invested in business, social or green projects agreed by a committee of selected representatives. The farmers have already received Fairtrade premium payments for sales to Switzerland and France and each of the village clubs has submitted proposal for community projects. Funds have been settled and dispersed to a number of projects which are now up and running:

Infrastructure improvements for schools and roads

Repair the broken boundary wall of a village primary school. Five groups plan to construct move toward roads from their villages to the farming fields in the vicinity which become inaccessible during the rainy season.

1. Raising the level of a school playground which is unusable during the monsoon season because of standing water.

2. Construction of a bus shelter exterior one village to protect waiting passengers from rain and sun.

3. Construction of a number of small bridges over drains which flood and make some villages out-of-the-way during rainy season.

Proposed Loan fund

Most of the farmers depend on one rice crop, and so one annual payment at harvest time, for 85-90% of their cash income. They have to take out loans during the year to buy seeds and inputs, to pay for various functions such as weddings and festivals and pay for health care and education. Usually they are at the mercy of local agents who charge a very high rate of interest and to whom they are in large debt. A revolving soft loans fund would enable members to reduce their debt and the capital support would grow through the interest payments.

Future projects

the farmers’ villages naturally have a primary school but especially few children from farming families go on to higher education and the villages lack primary health care services. The farmers want to look into how they can improve the chances of their children going on to university and the promise of funding village clinics or a local hospital. 

Members also want to set up family planning and green protection programmers and provide training for income generates schemes for women such as fruit and vegetable preserving and handicrafts.