The Fairtrade Foundation has announced a huge sales boost in 2008, battling back against accusations that customers would be trading away from ethically sourced products in search of low prices.
UK sales of products carrying the Fairtrade mark reached an estimated retail value in excess of £700 million in 2008, bucking the global downturn with a 43 per cent increase over 2007.
Ahead of Fairtrade Fortnight, the foundation has also released a report which suggests efforts to tackle the global food crisis will fail without urgent action to support small farmers in developing countries.
The report, entitled 'The Global Food Crisis and Fairtrade: Small farmers, big solutions?', suggests that rocketing food, fuel and fertiliser prices have had a devastating effect on the livelihoods of more than two billion farming families worldwide, with farmers in Uganda, Malawi, Nicaragua, India, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean revealing that many families are now having to spend up to 80 per cent of their entire household budget on basic food items.
Joseph Mbusa, of the Mubuku Moringa Vanilla Farmers Association in Uganda, said: “The food situation is really bad. Apart from times of calamities such as drought, this is the most difficult time we have known with these high food prices. I don’t see them reducing soon. It will last another ten years.
“For many farmers, farm-gate prices of export commodities such as vanilla, coffee, tea or sugar have been completely outstripped by the dramatic rise of local food staples such as maize.”
Harriet Lamb, chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: “These are tough times for everyone, but they are desperate times for many poor communities and small farmers in developing countries. They urgently need support to keep producing the food we all eat, and to provide a future for their families.
“We are calling on governments, north and south, and businesses to ensure this crucial small farmer sector is placed centre stage in strategies to tackle the food crisis and boost agricultural production.”
The report also describes a number of areas of decline, including levels of northern government aid to agriculture, which have ‘collapsed’ from $7.6 billion (£5.3bn) in 1980 to just $3.9bn (£2.7bn) in 2006, African governments’ spending on agriculture, which has dropped to just four per cent, and mounting concerns over the decreased involvement of smallholders in decision-making.
Lamb said of the record sales figures: “[This keeps] us on track with our plan to double the impact of Fairtrade by 2012. In the current global economic climate, farmers need Fairtrade more than ever. So it is profoundly reassuring to know that the public are still wholeheartedly backing a better deal for farmers and workers around the world, enabling them to survive this crisis and continue investing in stronger businesses and a better life for their communities.
“And it makes sense for businesses to build long-term relations with producers on whom they depend while also responding to public demand for Fairtrade.
“Put quite simply, we’re calling on all major players to put smallholders at the heart of their agricultural policies. Everyone can do their bit by increasing the size of Fairtrade markets, but there also needs to be a concerted effort by governments, international institutions and business to shore up agricultural support systems so that small farmers can stay on the land, produce food for local consumption, as well as get a better deal from trade so that they can also play their part in tackling poverty and contributing towards the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals, to which governments have committed.”
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