Madam, – Sarah Carey (Opinion, July 16th), wrote about the New Voices in Development conference which she chaired and which I and many others attended. Rightly for a conference of this type about priorities in development policy and practice the conference raised many more questions than it answered – which is no bad thing in itself.
However, at least some of the questions raised by Ms Carey can be answered more easily. Specifically she asks if the fact that Fairtrade does not work with large coffee plantations in developing countries is indicative of an attitude that thinks business is inherently bad?
No it isn’t. We believe business is neither inherently good or bad – and that it completely depends on how any business is conducted – and from our perspective on how business impacts on small farmers and workers in developing countries.
Fairtrade does work with large businesses, both in Ireland and in developing countries, on the understanding that it is only through working with mainstream businesses that we can help to improve the situation for significant numbers of people in developing countries. Globally, coffee is a small-holder commodity, with about 70 per cent produced by small producers – unlike tea, for example, which is mainly produced on large plantations. The discussions within the Fairtrade system internationally are about how to include larger, lower-cost production plantations within the Fairtrade system while at the same time protecting the interests of small farmers and their co-operatives.
In Ireland, the Irish Fair Trade Network encourages businesses to endeavour to meet credible certification schemes such as the Utz Certified system as a base-line ethical certification scheme for all of their commodity purchases while increasing the volumes they buy on Fairtrade terms. Having worked with Bewleys since 1996 when it launched the first Fairtrade Certified product in Ireland, we commend it for doing both these things. But we would also commend the other businesses such as Java Republic and Robert Roberts for the very significant committments they have also made.
Ms Carey may not have been aware that in the last year both the iconic Cadbury Dairy Milk bar of chocolate and the Nestlé Kit Kat chocolate biscuit have converted to Fairtrade in Ireland and Britain. Not the approach of a system that felt business was inherently bad.
Though, as Ms Carey says, the choices made by individuals and Governments about how they spend their money can often be hard, it doesn’t have to be “aid or trade”. It can be “aid for trade” that promotes development and fosters human rights, aid for Fairtrade and ethical trade. Happily for us in Ireland, the Government, through its overseas development assistance programme in Irish Aid is still one of the largest donors to Fairtrade and ethical trade in the world.
I’m not sure if all this makes us a BoNGO (business-organised NGO), a QuaNGO (Quasi-autonomous NGO) or even an ENGO (Environmental NGO), but we are an NGO that is passionately committed to trying to ensure that people in developing contries get better opportunities from the business they conduct with people and businesses in Ireland. – Yours, etc,