Mike and Sheena King attended the online SE Regional Campaigner’s Zoom Conference.

There were some some very interesting and encouraging addresses and information.
Mike and Sheena have summarised the content of the 4 addresses that they listened to and links to these, as PDF document, are below.

The four summaries cover: – 

1). Big Green Week 18-26 September 2021

2). Joanna Pollard – Fairtrade Foundation, National Campaign Council Chairperson address

3). Pauline Tiffen – B2B Business to Business Initiative.

4). Sarah Brazier – Fairtrade Foundation Campaign Manager address.

For two weeks each year at the end of February and start of March, thousands of individuals, companies and groups across the UK come together to share the stories of the people who grow our food and drinks and who grow the cotton in our clothes, people who are often exploited and underpaid.

Farmers and workers in the global south, who have done the least to contribute to climate change, are disproportionately affected. With the emergence of the global COVID pandemic, the challenges that farmers face now are bigger than ever before with falling commodity prices and widespread shocks reverberating along our global supply chains.

To read more about this year’s Fairtrade Foundation initiatives and how you can get involved go to https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get-involved/current-campaigns/fairtrade-fortnight/. Special information for schools can be found at https://schools.fairtrade.org.uk/take-action/fairtrade-fortnight-2021/

Gloria Maria Talavera Gonzalez. Fairtrade Coffee & Cocoa Farmer & Women’s Coordinator Producer from the SOPPEXCCA Cooperative, Nicaragua.

She has been farming cocoa and coffee in Corinta Finca for over 25 years. Fairtrade has enabled:-

• Financing a scholarship for her son to study agricultural engineering in Germany for a year, helping to keep young people involved with the land.
• Fairtrade provided credit for replacing all her coffee plants when the fungal leaf rust disease (La Roya), decimated her and neighbouring crops in 2013.
• Her son and daughter help on the plantation at weekends, removing poor quality coffee beans and cocoa pods that not growing well.

Gloria stressed the importance of Fairtrade especially in the areas of:

1. Developing and spreading women’s gender equality, men and women are paid the same price for their coffee. A separate women’s coffee brand has developed over the last few years called “Sister”.
2. Through Fairtrade producer cooperatives, larger amounts of coffee and cocoa can be exported, on newly surfaced roads, partly paid for by the Fairtrade Premium.
3. The organic coffee and cocoa meet the exacting Fairtrade Certificate Standards and requirements which are regularly inspected and so have consumer confidence.
4. Agricultural technicians and agronomists supervise the Cooperatives’ plantations.
5. SOPPEXCCA’s farmers work with the environment. They are encouraged to grow other crops, both as for healthy consumption, but also for selling in local markets and even exporting. Bananas, orchard fruit, maize and organic honey, are crucial cash crops as well as providing vital vitamins for families and for food security.
6. Nicaragua is well off for water and forests, but climate change of just a few degrees can have a dramatic impact on coffee production, the main cash crop. Fortunately, cocoa grows well in the fertile, volcanic soil and fills in most of the income gap. Plots devoted to bananas, mangoes, and other diversified fruit provide more than self-sufficiency – diverse income streams. Annatto is an orange-red food coloring or condiment made from the seeds of the achiote tree.
7. A group of enterprising women, using part of the Fairtrade Premium have utilized local organic beekeeping to combine the honey with the maize to produce a grain energy bar. They were aided by marketing help from a female entrepreneur in Ireland who advised on marketing. These energy bars are also sold in their plantation cafe. Unsold fruit along with washed coffee sludge is dried and bagged for organic fertilizer for Cooperative members.
8. Fairtrade Premiums have been invested in community health projects over the years, including a free health clinic for workers and regular cancer checks.
9. A holistic approach is adopted with guaranteed Fairtrade coffee and cocoa prices ironing out fluctuations in world prices and allowing farmers to plan for the future for cash crops. The Fairtrade Premium also encourages fledgling income diversity and local ripple effect industries to provide new revenue streams, some of which are very intuitive.

Notes Produced by:
Mike King
Chairman, Wycombe Fairtrade     

Louise Whitaker; Group Support Manager, Bewley’s UK

Visit to the SOPPEXCCA Cooperative in Nicaragua and Unlocking the power of Women in Coffee.

Louise began her presentation by stating that over 125 million people in 70 countries worldwide rely on coffee as the main cash crop. However, the coffee plant does not like quick changes in growing conditions and is largely intolerant of progressive temperature increases. Coffee is also very labour intensive and prone to pests and fungal diseases. Coffee seedlings take 4 to 5 years to produce in nurseries before any coffee cherries grow on the bush. The first crop is discarded before the best cherries mature. When ripe, the cherries are hand-picked, sorted, and then de-pulped to obtain the two green coffee beans in each cherry. The green coffee beans are then place in the sun to dry for 3 – 7 days and  turned regularly.

Women provide much of the labour in what are often male-dominated societies, as well as looking after the children, cooking, collecting water, shopping, or running small businesses in local markets

Louise referred to a newly published ICO document examining gender equality and climate change.

When women have access to finance, credit, training, and are involved in the decision making processes of the cooperative, women tend to save more money than men as well as direct more of that finance to providing for the family.

Members of the SOPPEXCCA Cooperative pay to be part of the Fairtrade auditing scheme to have the certification logo on their coffee and cocoa products. Fairtrade membership entitlements include:-

• Gender equality
• Equal pay for men and women
• One member one vote on business and community project decisions
• Access to credit – (a holistic approach is taken)
• Women managers and leaders act as “role models” in the cooperative expanding the narrative
• Money provides for school bags, paper, pens,  and child uniforms even though state education is free
• Children can then aspire to colleges and universities for professional training
• With credit, women can start their own coffee or small businesses.

e.g. women collect organic honey from bees and combine this with home grown maize to produce energy bars, which are sold locally in markets, shops and even exported

• This in turn provides access to more credit e.g. $10,000 for marketing of biscuits and energy bars. A wheel begins to role and gather pace, so creating a new mini-enterprise

Positive factors

There is a clear role for women in businesses as well as community, empowering and enhancing their status, closing the gender gap. Women work hard in the production of coffee but can create quite innovative enterprises which diversify the economy based on local conditions and advantages. Women understand the relationship of their work with the land and the environment and can help fight climate change.

During her 2018 visit to SOPPEXCCA Cooperative, Louise met a number of women with interesting stories to tell about improving their economic opportunities  as well social and community benefits, once they have access to credit, they become entrepreneurs and role models. Money has also come from Melissa Gates and the Hilary Clinton Foundations.

Greta: 90% of her income was directed to her family, improving diet, health and education opportunities. She works in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Farmers would lose money if their coffee were not sold under Fairtrade terms. Being involved in both business and community decision making means inclusion and empowerment for women in SOPPEXCCA. The current General manager of the cooperative is Fatima Ismael, who is responsible for over 800 individual coffee farmers.

Rosa: listed a number of advantages since she became a smallholder. Land can now be registered in a woman’s name, and encourages economic diversity and the setting up of micro-businesses apart from growing the cash crop – coffee. Gender equality is established as well as young people can see the improvements and realize that farming can offer a living wage and a future.

Maxima: Her coffee is sold under the Women’s coffee label – “Sisters. The Fairtrade money earned is allocated to school equipment for her children. With the low coffee prices, she has stated growing cocoa as a main cash crop. Cocoa benefits include:-

• Stable higher income than coffee and is viewed as a “buffer” crop
• Grows all the year round
• Provides more money out of the coffee harvest season
• Has started to make her own chocolate bars
• Cocoa grows well at lower levels on land formally used for coffee production
• She is seen as a role model for other female producers
• Mutual skill sharing and utilizing cross-product marketing.

      Myrtle: She established a small cafe on her coffee growing land and taught herself to become a     barista by studying at weekends.

Climate change has a human cost as well as an immediate environmental crop.

Notes Produced by:
Mike King
Chairman, Wycombe Fairtrade     

Barney Smyth; Acting Senior Partnership Manager, Fairtrade Foundation. 1.45 pm.

Explored 2 Questions about Fairtrade.

What makes Fairtrade certification unique?

Why do Fairtrade producers, buyers and end consumers have faith in the Fairtrade logo.

1. Minimum price for a product e.g. coffee is paid to producers which irons out the world market price peaks and troughs. Eliminating these price fluctuations means that producers can plan ahead, and Fairtrade buyers know that coffee has been grown on Fairtrade terms. Currently Fairtrade farmers are paid $1.40 per pound of coffee. The current world price is between $1.00 and $1.20. This minimum price guarantee is paid when coffee prices rise. The Fairtade price is always 20 cents above the global coffee price. This Fairtrade price covers the costs of sustainable and environmentally friendly production.
   
2. Fairtrade farmers and producers receive an additional Fairtrade Premium on top of the selling price. This is usually another 1% of the value of the products. The producer cooperative workers, who know their own needs, can then decide to allocate this funding to:
   – social projects
   – improving community infrastructure
   – Investing in a health centre
   – buying in training and education
   – building schools
   – improving their businesses with new equipment
   – Workers are thus empowered and can take control of their own livelihoods.
   
3. The Fairtrade logo is a recognised kitemark and reflects uniform assessment by FLOCERT, the independent WFTO body that assesses farmers; producers; suppliers; traders; and wholesalers that rigorous standards have been met and that regular inspections are made to trace and prove product traceability.

Barney Smith presented some interesting Fairtrade Foundation Statistics –

Fairtrade has been going for over 25years
– 90% of people in the UK recognize the Fairtrade logo
– 87% of people in the UK trust the logo
– 76% of people in the UK care about the third party/independent certification process
– 76% of people in the UK care about Fairtrade producers and farmers
– 76% of people in the UK actively seek and choose Fairtrade products

Why Fairtrade makes such a big difference?

• Producers and farmers have a guaranteed income
• They have decent working conditions
• There is no child or forced labour
• Men and women receive equal pay, empowering both genders
• Fairtrade suppliers establish long-term working relationships with producer cooperatives
• There are social, economic, and environmental benefits of belonging to a Fairtrade cooperative
• The cost of belonging Fairtrade certified cooperative includes many other benefits such as technical and agricultural training  for farmers and a chance to belong to network groups

Fairtrade Coffee Cooperative Statistics 2019

• There are 582 Fairtrade coffee cooperatives located in Latin America, Africa, and SE Asia
• 762,000 farmers growing and selling Fairtrade coffee.
• 86% of all Fairtrade coffee originates from Central and South America
• Fairtrade coffee production is worth in excess of 84 million Euros.
• 18% of Fairtrade coffee growers are women.

In a short accompanying video, one coffee grower stated that “Coffee is our life”, and more farmers need to sell coffee on Fairtrade terms where the environmental costs are factored in to the end price. The guaranteed price of Fairtrade coffee irons out the huge fluctuations in the market price.

“Climate change is a huge threat to livelihoods” but that farmers will have to adapt.

Notes Produced by:
Mike King
Chairman, Wycombe Fairtrade

Ideas for supporting Fairtrade fortnight 2020 can be found at http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/get-involved/current-campaigns/Fairtrade-Fortnight

The Fairtrade Foundation says “It’s a quarter of a century since we launched the FAIRTRADE Mark in the UK. Powered by people and community action, it’s grown from an idea about justice and fairness among a few like-minded groups, into a household name. It has completely changed how we think about the people who produce the food, drink and clothing we enjoy every day. “

The following regional conferences are being run in the UK to recognise this landmark:

• Exeter – Saturday 21 September 2019: 10:30am – 3:30pm, Exeter Community Centre.
• Middlesbrough – Saturday 21 September – 10:30am – 3:30pm – Teeside University Students’ Union.
• Nottingham – Saturday 26 October – 10:30am – 3:30pm – Albert Hall Conference Centre.

More details and links to register (essential) can be found at https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get%20involved//In-your-community/Regional-Supporter-Conferences