29.3 (Fall 2005) Fair Trade and Indigenous Peoples

Politics in the Andes, a series of social science essays, presents a unique comparative analysis of the ongoing research of several international authors in five Andean countries- Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia

As the president of La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto, I direct the cooperative’s business, meetings, work plans, and employees, advise the small coffee growers, and watch to see that everything ends to the benefit of the community. I have been involved with this group of farmers for 26 years, and we have been a fair trade cooperative for 14 years.

La Voz became involved in fair trade because we had problems relating to the world commodities price of coffee.

A women's organization in the Philippines used an environmental campaign to create a worldwide trend that helps artisans compete in the global market.

Long Term and Stable Relationship

Buyers and sellers will establish a long-term and stable relationship in which the rights and interests of both are mutually respected.

Some coffee roasters' current work and future commitments for their fair trade businesses

Green Mountain

Green Mountain has had a licensing agreement with TransFair USA since 2000. In December 2003, the company made a commitment in a letter to the United Students for Fair Trade that 25 percent of its purchases and sales would be fair trade within five years. Two years later, Green Mountain is on track to hit that mark, says Rick Peyser, director of public relations.

In Australia, Aboriginal paintings- which boast an extremely contemporary "look" despite the millennia of traditions from which they arise—are displayed in prestigious museums alongside such modern masters as Jackson Pollock, Helen Fran

I have been working in the main office for the past five years.

The popularity of Navajo rug designs has allowed some fair trade businesses to thrive while Navajo weavers suffer.

Ninety percent of indigenous peoples living in the southwestern United States depend on crafts as their principal or secondary source of income.

A former crafts fair trader shares the lessons he learned when he mixed business and social justice.

This issue of Cultural Survival Quarterly looks at fair trade—the global movement in which North American and European marketers form partnerships with producers in the global South to ensure that low-income farmers and artisans earn a living wage for their work—and examines whether it is “fair” for indigenous peoples.

For some, in this era when free trade has triumphed over all other global economic models, the question is heretical. For others it merely is absurd.

On June 22 the second International Indigenous Youth Conference (IIYC) released several resolutions and declarations aiming to stop the destructive impacts of globalization on indigenous lands, cultures, and peoples.

I entered the coop in 1985. I have always had my plots and I run them in a natural way. Since I entered the coop with the organic technology, I have earned a better price and I was able to buy my house and my children have achieved a higher level of education.

My children and I get up early to gather firewood before they go to school and I go to the fields. I work during the whole year. The crop changes depending on the season. If a coffee plant dies I plant another. The coop is composed of 18 members who are on the junta directiva. I am one of the leaders of the coop.

Indigenous farmers and crafters told Cultural Survival about their experiences with fair trade and what the movement needs to do to achieve its goals.

About two years ago, Willie Foote from Ecologic, a microfinance company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, came into the Cultural Survival office to ask if we had done any research on how fair trade impacts indigenous peoples. It was a logical question, based on Cultural Survival’s trade relations with indigenous people through the now-defunct Cultural Survival Enterprises and our ongoing indigenous crafts bazaars.

Coffee is the economic lifeblood of many indigenous communities. As with any primary cash crop, it can provide meaningful income or it can lock the growers into an unbreakable cycle of poverty. The fair trade movement has great potential to support the goals and aspirations of indigenous peoples throughout the coffee lands.

A Guatemala fair trade weaving cooperative enables civil war widows to stay home and maintain their Mayan culture, but the coop struggles to survive in the global marketplace.

Fair trade has allowed indigenous coffee producers to improve their lives, but some farmers' experiences show that this social movement must go beyond charity.