Fairtrade Fortnight has begun! That might not mean much to you if you live in the US, but for people in the UK it means two weeks of campaigning and awareness raising about fair trade. I was lucky enough to volunteer in 2008 for Fairtrade Fortnight and it was awe inspiring! The whole country gets to meet producers and learn first hand how fair trade can help small producers in the developing world.

For this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight the Fairtrade Foundation is asking all people in the UK to participate in The Big Swap. For two whole weeks they’re asking folks to swap their usual stuff for Fairtrade stuff. Their usual bananas for Fairtrade bananas, their usual cotton socks for Fairtrade cotton socks, and their usual cup of coffee or tea for a Fairtrade cup of coffee or tea. And, even though you might not live in the UK, you can still participate. Whenever you go to the shops to buy your usual brand, think again. You can use your wallet to make a stand and buy fair trade! When you swap from your regular brand to fair trade, that’s proof that you want producers in the developing world to get a fairer deal.

The Fairtrade Foundation’s goal is for a million people to make The Big Swap. As a sign of solidarity, I challenge each of you to make it even better…maybe two million??? You can find fair trade tea, coffee, chocolate, and fashion all on our website. So, whadda say??? Let’s do The Big Swap!

Find out more about The Big Swap in this video:

The founders of Ben and Jerry’s say they plan to make all the flavors of their ice cream in all of their markets into completely fair trade certified ingredients by 2013. Ben and Jerry’s began introducing some fair trade certified ingredients into their ice cream back in 2005.

This announcement comes ten years after the pair sold their Burlington, Vermont based company to corporate giant Unilever, prompting fears that the brand’s championing of social causes might be affected.

This announcement is important because of  the “all or nothing” nature of the commitment. It’s the first 100% commitment from a mainstream brand, and, hopefully, this may prompt other mainstream brands to follow suit. It may also help to increase the visibility of the fair trade movement. More than two-thirds of US shoppers don’t really know what “fair trade” means. And only 29% of US consumers are familiar with the fair trade certification mark, compared to over 50% globally. As many as 16% of people in the US who are familiar with fair trade don’t see the certifications in the US as credible.

“Fair Trade is about making sure people get their fair share of the pie,” company co-founder Jerry Greenfield says in the company’s press release. “The whole concept of Fair Trade goes to the heart of our values and sense of right and wrong. Nobody wants to buy something that was made by exploiting somebody else.”

You can read the whole article here.

You may have heard of Fair Trade the White House, whose goal is to ask First Lady Michelle Obama to join the Fair Trade Movement by declaring the White House a fair trade home. This year you can declare your home a Fair Trade Home for Fair Trade Day, May 8, 2010. Of course, you don’t have to limit being fair trade in your home to just the one day…this could just be the beginning!

As you know, Fair Trade is an alternative way of doing trade, where the people producing a product are treated fairly, paid fairly, and are being fair to the environment. A home that is committed to the purchase and use of fair trade goods is a “Fair Trade Home.”

The goal is to get as many people as possible to declare their homes “fair trade” leading up to World Fair Trade Day. You can submit a photo or video showing how many fair trade products you regularly purchase and use in your home.

The purpose of Fair Trade My Home is to raise a greater awareness of fair trade and its impact among  regular folks. The more people who know about fair trade and choose to buy fair trade products will help cut down on poverty both in the US and around the world.  Declare your home a fair trade home before May 8, 2010 in honor of World fair Trade Day! Join the community and conversation (and take action!) by going to Fair Trade My Home on Facebook.

Perhaps you haven’t seen the YouTube videos or other reports of the child slaves in the Ivory Coast harvesting cocoa beans (complete with beatings and inhumane conditions). Unfortunately, I have, and I can no longer look at my favorite chocolate bars in the same way — not with the Ivory Coast supplying 43 percent of the world’s chocolate.

Read about what you can do here.

While riding in my car doing the usual boring errands, I came across a radio show featuring a young, outspoken Kenyan named Binyavanga Wainaina speaking about his views on the “Ethics of Aid”. My ears perked up. What could this young Kenyan have to say about donor aid and where his country was headed?
All too often, we assume that we know what is best for Africans. Yet, after 50 years of aid, half the population of sub-Saharan Africa is still living in extreme poverty. According to figures from the World Bank, the number of poor people in Africa has doubled from 200 million in 1981 to 380 million in 2005. Although the numbers are staggering, Wainaina has discerned that prolonged donor aid sometimes has a debilitating psychological effect on the very people it is seeking to help. He says, “a lot of people arrive in Africa to assume that it’s a blank, empty place and their goodwill and desire and guilt will fix it. And that to me is not any different from the first people who arrived to colonize us.”
Wainaina maintains that “the single thing that has changed the lives of millions of Kenyans in the last ten or fifteen years has been the rearrangement of the banking capital to serve the small Kenyan….the micro-lending banks, scaling up the idea that somebody who earns a thousand shillings a month is bankable and someone to invest in and be able to create a model for that person to acquire credit in a reasonable way and grow, that has mattered more than a donor or all of the donor things, because it believes in the idea that the person on the ground has an idea and that idea can be serviced.”
And if there is one thing that Wainaina wants people in the West to know, it is that “where these things work is where people do it themselves…you go back from 1940 until now. Any countries that have done well for themselves and have managed to do positive things and that have changed the lives of the large parts of their countries have done so on their own effort.”
He goes on to say that the projects that DO tend to work are “…projects where you have a very long relationship with people and you understand their value. And they do things themselves, very much on the ground, very sensible….they get the community participating….it’s very cost-effective and it’s very natural and it’s a part of our lives.”
When you invest in Shared Interest, you are investing in a lender that has been involved and on the ground for over 20 years. They work extensively with community based businesses in Africa and other countries to make the most of fair trade by providing capital up front for producers and longer term loans to support the purchase of infrastructure such as machinery, buildings and vehicles for growing businesses.
So when you are trying to decide whether to invest or to give…think about investing, because in the end we need to see Africa’s promise alongside its problems in order to participate attentively in its future.

This was first written for Shared Interest a couple of months ago when I was guest blogging for them. But I thought it was worthy of a repeat here. Let me know what you think…

At a time when farming has become less profitable and more difficult due to the scarcity of land and the Israeli Occupation, some Palestinian farmers are using fair trade practices to preserve centuries old farming traditions.

The southern West Bank is known for it’s grapes, which Palestinian farmers grow with little or no water on small plots. The Beit Ommar Cooperative Agricultural Products and Services Society is a non-profit NGO, which assists in economic development in the community, and they are hoping to sell these grapes as fair trade raisins to Germany. This is just one of several cooperatives in the region using fair trade, and sometimes organic, practices for economic development. The Israeli label SAHA Fair Trade, which means “health” or “well being”  in Arabic and is an acronym for “fair trade” in Hebrew, imports Palestinian olive oil, grape honey and za’atar to health food stores in Tel Aviv. Other Palestinian groups promoting fair trade, mainly in the West Bank, are the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC), which aims to to improve the social and economic situation for small farmers and women by selling fair trade olive oil, olive oil soap, thyme, couscous, almonds, sun-dried tomatoes and medjoul dates.

The most delicious (and good for you) Palestinian fair trade export is olive oil. Started in 2004, Zaytoun, a UK based company, is trying to create and develop a UK market for artisan Palestinian produce, especially olive oil.  In additional to selling Palestinian artisanal produce, every year, Zaytoun organizes two trips to the West Bank for it’s supporters and customers. Both of these trips are timed to coincide with the annual olive harvest, which is usually around the end of October and the beginning of November. To find out more about these trips, go here. And don’t forget to look for Palestinian fair trade items where you shop!

At TransFair USA, they are extremely grateful to have so many friends, family, and supporters who are committed to making the world a better place. We have all been searching for ways to help with Tuesday’s catastrophic earthquake near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. While the full extent of the damage is still being assessed by NGOs and news agencies around the world, we wanted to take a moment to let our Haitian Fair Trade Certified producers know that they are in our thoughts, and to share with you a little more about Fair Trade in Haiti and how you can help at this time of crisis. Read the rest of the story here.

As most of you know by now, Haiti experienced a 7.0 earthquake yesterday. Seventy-five percent of Port-au-Prince is in ruins and hundreds of thousands are missing or dead. The three hospitals that Doctors without Borders practiced from were devastated. Please click the button to your right and give as much as you can to help the doctors on the ground help the people of Haiti. Do it now! And then tell your friends…retweet it and share it on Facebook.