ETHICAL TRAVELLER: CATHERINE MACKon responsible tourism
AS FAIRTRADE Fortnight comes to a close, you may have seen a greater presence of Fairtrade products at your local supermarket, cafe, school or health club. But did you know that you could also go on a Fair- trade holiday? They are run by a company called Traidcraft Meet the People Tours, which is managed in turn by a wonderful cycling holiday company, which I have mentioned before in my column, Saddle Skedaddle.They are exactly what they say on the Fairtrade tin – tours to meet the people who bring Fairtrade produce to our shelves, such as the cocoa producers of Ghana, citrus farmers in Cuba, rubber plantation cooperatives in Sri Lanka, to name but a few.
After talking to Kay Quinn, a mother of four from Skibbereen, Co Cork, and voluntary Fairtrade Committee member in her area, I can see why people go back again and again for these exceptionally informative trips to meet the people. She has just returned from a 15-day trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua, where she travelled with fellow Skibbereen Fairtrade volunteer Nicholas MacGillycuddy to meet coffee and pineapple producers.
After winning Best Fairtrade Town of Ireland in 2009, they were picked from a hat of volunteers’ names, and this trip was their prize. They both joined a group of paying punters most of whom, according to Quinn, were on their second or third Traidcraft holiday. And she could see why – just a week after her return she is already making a long term plan to go on the South African one with her family. “I have the bug, girl,” she enthused, and confirmed my belief that if you are going to visit one of these countries and, in particular, if you have any interest at all in agriculture or food production, this is the only way to go.
Quinn is a secondary school teacher in agricultural science, so she was particularly impressed with the guide who travelled with them throughout the trip, Heiner Castillo, also an agricultural scientist at Costa Rica’s Earth (Escuela de Agricultura de la Región Tropical Húmeda) University, on a break from work to share his expert knowledge with visitors.
These visits to farms and plantations are in no way tokenistic, assures Quinn, who says that some of the most memorable moments included afternoon-long chats with women and men who worked on the farms, eating with them, cooking with them, and hearing in detail about what being Fairtrade communities means to them.
And ultimately, it is the cooperative ethos of Fairtrade which these farmers value, and which the visitors saw the benefits of. By selling their produce via the Fairtrade system, they gain a premium which can be spent in a way the cooperative thinks best. One community they met invested it in their own processing plant, so that they gained economically throughout the production chain, and another opted to fund a community school.
Working on a small town community committee in Ireland, and seeing how another small town works together as a cooperative in Central America, is something Quinn won’t forget. There are other holiday companies which offer homestays or visits to agritourism projects, but none which delve into the life and work of small communities quite like Traidcraft Meet The People Tours. The communities they visit are now starting to see not only the benefits of Fairtrade produce, but also the benefits of responsible tourism, with local hotels, guesthouses and restaurants sharing the tourist spend from these trips.
And it’s not all down on the farm on these holidays, with Quinn and MacGillycuddy enjoying zip wiring in tropical rainforest, lake cruises, bathing in hot springs and swimming in the Pacific.
The difference with these trips is that meeting the people plays just as important a role as sightseeing. “I left a bit of my heart in Costa Rica,” Quinn says, and judging by the amount of people who keep travelling back for more Traidcraft Holidays, there certainly must have been something good in that coffee.
- meetthepeople.skedaddle.co.uk and fairtrade.ie
- Read Catherine's blog at ethicaltraveller.net and follow her at twitter.com/catherine mack