Fairtrade University!

[exnihilo]

Strictly, I didn't say the majority disagreed, but I do very much think that the majority don't care and/or were perfectly content with the way things were already.

Evidence? Where are the Fair Trade only shops? Where is the huge Fair Trade range in Tesco etc? Not there because most people simply are not clamouring for it.

This is a policy driven by a minority and not actively opposed by the majority, because to most people it's just not a priority.

[Light the Rag]

Are people not clamouring for it because most don't care?

If most people don't care about what they buy, then does it matter if they're buying FT instead?

If most people don't care, is it still wrong to help better other people's lives?

[Haunted]

Quoting light the rag from 14:33, 13th Apr 2006
If most people don't care about what they buy, then does it matter if they're buying FT instead?

I think people care about price, for which FT isn't renouned for.
I stand with the silent majority here in that it really makes no difference to me. Unless of course people are shoving it down my throat at every opportunity forcing me to buy into their idealistic fluffy politics

[duckgirl]

idealistic fluffy politics
oh man i have just laughed out loud in the library..how stereotypical can you get.
How is this fluffy...i certainly dont get any fluffy or warm feelings from sitting in long boring meetings with middle-aged pricks (or middle-aged pricks disguised in the bodies of students) who think that they are Gods Gift because they have a title recognised by Brian Lang.

And do people care about price? this is such a huge generalisation...if people cared ultimately about price tesco value products would be the only thing sold. you may only care about price but there are people who care 1) about quality, and 2)about the ethics behind these products.
How are you, as a mere consumer, to dictate the lives of the farmers who feed us? As smarmy and self-righteous as you get - you would still die without the farmers who grow the food that we eat...Why shouldn't they get a fair price and live a life that they deserve as human beings?

Quoting Haunted from 14:42, 13th Apr 2006

Quoting light the rag from 14:33, 13th Apr 2006
If most people don't care about what they buy, then does it matter if they're buying FT instead?

I think people care about price, for which FT isn't renouned for.
I stand with the silent majority here in that it really makes no difference to me. Unless of course people are shoving it down my throat at every opportunity forcing me to buy into their idealistic fluffy politics

[Steveo]

I'll put it simply, I don't agree with Fairtrade - right that's out of the way.

Is there anything wrong with the fact that I, personally, prefer to support local, over foreign, farmers for example?

[hr]

Set your goals way too high so I can laugh when you fail.

[Haunted]

Quoting duckgirl from 14:53, 13th Apr 2006
And do people care about price? this is such a huge generalisation...if people cared ultimately about price tesco value products would be the only thing sold. you may only care about price but there are people who care 1) about quality, and 2)about the ethics behind these products.
How are you, as a mere consumer, to dictate the lives of the farmers who feed us? As smarmy and self-righteous as you get - you would still die without the farmers who grow the food that we eat...Why shouldn't they get a fair price and live a life that they deserve as human beings?

I am certainly not dictating anything. Well, except maybe that people should be free to choose. If you want to buy FT fair enough, but if I want to buy slave-labour produced food (which I don't incidentally) then I should damn well be able to without getting stick for it.

I am not of the opinion that FT products are superior, so when I see the same thing at a cheaper price, I tend to go for it instead.

[someone]

Quoting Steveo from 15:04, 13th Apr 2006
I'll put it simply, I don't agree with Fairtrade - right that's out of the way.

Is there anything wrong with the fact that I, personally, prefer to support local, over foreign, farmers for example?

[hr]

Set your goals way too high so I can laugh when you fail.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it. There are lots of reasons why you should buy from local suppliers because you get better quality, it is better from the environment etc.
However if you are buying something which orignates from the Third World (tea, coffee, chocolate etc) then buying fairtrade is important- as I feel I should do my best not to buy goods which support slave labour or exploitation.

[flarewearer]

Quoting duckgirl from 14:53, 13th Apr 2006

How are you, as a mere consumer, to dictate the lives of the farmers who feed us? As smarmy and self-righteous as you get - you would still die without the farmers who grow the food that we eat...Why shouldn't they get a fair price and live a life that they deserve as human beings?

Demand is only one half of the equation, supply is the other side. Let's take coffee for instance.

Customers who buy gourmet coffees care about the quality of the product. To get a great coffee requires great beans, Arabica beans at that. Arabica beans can only be grown at very high altitudes and in certain soils and climates, and the best Arabica beans command the best prices. By buying top quality coffee you are paying a premium for a premium product and indeed, you pay the farmer a fair price for the product. There is high demand and low supply, and this favours the farmer.

The problem for coffee growers lies in the middle of the market. The reason coffee prices are so low for many African and South American farmers (who often end up selling at a loss) is due to global overproduction in lower quality Arabica and of Robusta, a more general purpose but low quality bean. This is mainly (I believe) due to the Vietnamese muscling into the market in a big way in the last 10-20 years. Currently there's something like an annual 800 000 ton (or 8%) global surplus of coffee production. There is just too much coffee on the market, that is the problem, it's simple market forces - with supply higher than demand, prices crash. Prices now are something like only 25% of what they were in the mid-90s when the Vietnamese hopped on the coffee bandwagon due to record high prices.

Coffee farmers are indeed getting a "fair" price for their goods. It's just that the fair price is too low to turn any sort of a profit on it. All the fairtrade products in the world cannot address this overproduction that keeps prices unsustainably low for the farmer. In fact, if anything, FT has the potential to subsidise farmers to continue producing a loss-making product, when the harsh realities of market economics would traditionally have forced them to move into other crops.

So in the short term, perhaps FT can make life easier for some 3rd world farmers. What it cannot do however is address the problem of overcapacity. Indeed there shouldn't even be a need for FT if we truly had an open and free market, it is a reality of farming that if you cannot turn a profit on a crop then you should be growing something which you can profit from.

That is why I will pay extra for a fine Italian roast coffee but I will not pay extra for an inferior FT equivalent (and yes, I have tried a LOT of coffees, FT and not FT, and I've yet to taste an FT coffee that comes close to a premium coffee). I am paying the coffee farmer a fair price for his product and I am not compounding the problem by subsidising a product that cannot be grown economically due to over production.

In my opinion, and I believe many other people of a similar bent as mine, FT is treating the effect of the problem as if it was the cause (and badly at that.)



[hr]

[exnihilo]

Slave labour is a term being bandied about a lot on this thread and it shouldn't be. You're guilty of a mean deception in trying to present a stark black and white choice between "fair trade" and "slave labour". It's misleading in the extreme.

[Harry Giles]

Quoting exnihilo from 13:30, 13th Apr 2006
He shouldn't have to start a campaign. He's in the majority and our elected officials and the University's governors should acknowledge that. But they don't, they fold to a tiny, but enormously vocal, minority. Such is the way we are governed at all levels these days.

I'm sorry--the University governors are under no obligation to bow to what the majority of students at all. This is not a democracy. The University governors will simply do what they see as being best for the University.

Union elected officials, of course, should be representing to the University what the majority of students want. Or at least, some of them should be. But we're in the odd position of having some Union officials elected as representatives, spokespersons, and other officials elected with a specific portfolio. I don't see it as my role at all to reflect what the majortiy of students want, for example. My role as I see it is to make the Union as ethical and environmentally sustainable as possible. I will listen to collective opinion on what that means, but I'm not a spokesperson for the majority.

So--we're not in a direct democracy. The majority view does not dictate what the University does. In order to affect what the University does, you have to convince the University of what is in its best interests. If whoever is doing the convincing is a minority, so be it.

Indeed, I don't need a policy, the status quo was working out just fine before, thanks.

No it wasn't. The status quo meant that the University was tacitly supporting exploitative trade practices. That wasn't good enough. So we changed it. We convinced the University that this practice was in its best interests. If you think otherwise, as you do, it is your job to convince the University that it is in its best interests not to be Fairtrade. Go to it.

[Lodestone]

Quoting exnihilo from 14:21, 13th Apr 2006
Strictly, I didn't say the majority disagreed, but I do very much think that the majority don't care and/or were perfectly content with the way things were already.

Evidence? Where are the Fair Trade only shops? Where is the huge Fair Trade range in Tesco etc? Not there because most people simply are not clamouring for it.

Fairtrade doesn't cover a wide enough range of goods for their to be Fairtrade-only shops. Instead, that specialist role has been taken on by healthfood stores. Also, the Co-op is leading the way in supermarkets for stocking Fairtrade goods: they've got that market. So there is plenty of clamouring for it.

Tescos does stock a reasonable amount. And you should speak to Tescos managers about what happens if they discontinue a Fairtrade line. Clamouring there certainly is.

[exnihilo]

The University governers are, as you rightly say, obliged to do what is best for the University. I invite you to stop for a moment and consider WHO the University actually is. It's our staff and students, that's who. If the majority of them were anti-"fair trade" then it would be incumbent upon the University's governers, elected or no, to attempt to satisfy that.

And, as has been pointed out repeatedly, it is perfectly possible to be economically and philosophically against "fair trade" as a legitimate, consistent position. It's not about being a right-wing, hearltess bastard it's about seeing the inherent flaws in the practice, about recognising the disadvantages and the advantages in other options and, more than a little, about resenting the mendacity with which the policy is often presented.

[Harry Giles]

The University governers are, as you rightly say, obliged to do what is best for the University. I invite you to stop for a moment and consider WHO the University actually is before you spout ill-informed drivel at me. It's our staff and students, that's who. If the majority of them were anti-"fairtrade" then it would be incumbent upon the University's governers, elected or no, to attempt to satisfy that.

That simply doesn't necessarily follow. If it were best for University for its governors to satisfy the majority view on a particular issue, then it would. But it's not as simple as doing what the majority wants, it just isn't. Students and staff do not make decisions. Governors are obliged to listen to students and staff (and General Council, and so on), but not just do what they want.

Take Ethical Investment as another example. There is a very clear and demonstrated majority in favour of having this University ethically invest. But now, sitting on the group that's trying to outline how such a policy will come about, I'm deeply aware of how many more obligations the Trustees have than to the majority view. I mean, jeez, there's the law for starters. It is the law that Trustees do what is in the best interests of the University.

--

There's an awful lot of bandying-about of imaginary implied statistics on this thread, as an aside.

[Harry Giles]

flarewearer,

Coffee farmers are indeed getting a "fair" price for their goods.

No, coffee farmers get the price that the market gives them for their goods. What you're implying is that what the current market dictates is necessarily "fair". What FT does is actually utilise market forces, by allowing consumers to demand more from suppliers than good quality and good price: good treatment of workers (including wage), or, more generally, "fairness". FT does not, cannot interfere with market economics, because it is not legislation: it is based solely on consumer decisions.

In fact, if anything, FT has the potential to subsidise farmers to continue producing a loss-making product, when the harsh realities of market economics would traditionally have forced them to move into other crops.

That's a point often mentioned, but people who know their stuff do indeed say "has the potential"--because, even though people have tried, nobody's been able to spot this happening. But yes, it is a worry. That's why it is important to campaign against unfair trade laws—because laws really do muck up the market. FT is only a stopgap, and FT campaigners do recognise that. We just believe that it's a necessary stopgap, and this one potential is not strong enough to counter the benefits it brings in the mean time.

(Just as a side-point: the market must always, of course, operate inside of international law. And international law, more and law, imposes environmental and humanitarian trade rules.)

So in the short term, perhaps FT can make life easier for some 3rd world farmers. What it cannot do however is address the problem of overcapacity. Indeed there shouldn't even be a need for FT if we truly had an open and free market

Then please, please help us campaign for better trade laws.

[flarewearer]

Quoting Harry Giles from 16:42, 13th Apr 2006

No, coffee farmers get the price that the market gives them for their goods. What you're implying is that what the current market dictates is necessarily "fair". What FT does is actually utilise market forces, by allowing consumers to demand more from suppliers than good quality and good price: good treatment of workers (including wage), or, more generally, "fairness". FT does not, cannot interfere with market economics, because it is not legislation: it is based solely on consumer decisions.

So in effect what you are saying is that there should be some sort of "fair" minimum price for goods, and that FT allows people to elect to "top up" the price to a sustainable level, even if overproduction has caused the price to slide below what is profitable?

This may, in some people's eyes, be a good solution or stopgap, but it still does not address the root of the problem which is overproduction.

I am all in favour of removing the subsidies for subsidy's sake and the operation of a freer market. I do not believe it is in our interest to subsidise, for instance, EU sugar farmers to produce mountains of cheap white sugar that feeds the processed food industry. (Interestingly, I have read that one of the reasons behind burgeoning numbers of "low fat" products is that sugar being so cheap, it is cheaper to take out the fat and replace it with sugar instead.)

I also believe that such things begin at home, which is why I earlier in the thread made the example of milk. If we are worried about the price that 3rd world farmers get for coffee and tea, then we should be equally worried about the price that our 1st world farmers get for the milk we pour on it. This is as great an injustice, with supermarkets and dairy cartels forcing dairy farmers to produce milk at an uneconomical price. Despite UK production dropping, they can just buy in cheap EU milk to replace it, and this is a great stick for the supermarkets and processors to beat the farmers with to lower prices. Farmers are getting forced to sell milk BELOW market value here, and if we cannot adress trade injustices at home, why are we worrying about trying to cure them around the world?

[hr]

[exnihilo]

Quoting Harry Giles from 16:33, 13th Apr 2006
But now, sitting on the group that's trying to outline how such a policy will come about, I'm deeply aware of how many more obligations the Trustees have than to the majority view. I mean, jeez, there's the law for starters. It is the law that Trustees do what is in the best interests of the University.

I know, I've been one of those Trustees.

[Harry Giles]

So in effect what you are saying is that there should be some sort of "fair" minimum price for goods, and that FT allows people to elect to "top up" the price to a sustainable level, even if overproduction has caused the price to slide below what is profitable?

Yes, effectively, as the best temporary solution. The market's in a mess as it is; I don't see a little more tampering, especially within the confines of the free market, rather than through legislation, doing more harm than good. The good it's doing raising people out of a poverty from which, until there are better trade laws, there is no escape. It does mess up the market, and we do pay a price--through higher cost and lower quality. But there is poverty, and that, to me, is an urgent, urgent problem.

This may, in some people's eyes, be a good solution or stopgap, but it still does not address the root of the problem which is overproduction.

Yes. We are only applying a salve to the sore. But we're applying the salve before curing the infection, because we see that as urgent. As it were.

if we cannot adress trade injustices at home, why are we worrying about trying to cure them around the world?

Because the Third World is poverty-stricken, and we are not, and because I don't believe, unlike Steveo and possibly yourself, that "home" or "those we care about" has a moral priority above such desperate need.

[Harry Giles]

Quoting exnihilo from 17:25, 13th Apr 2006

Quoting Harry Giles from 16:33, 13th Apr 2006
But now, sitting on the group that's trying to outline how such a policy will come about, I'm deeply aware of how many more obligations the Trustees have than to the majority view. I mean, jeez, there's the law for starters. It is the law that Trustees do what is in the best interests of the University.

I know, I've been one of those Trustees.

So you know exactly what I'm talking about, then. Good.

[the Empress]

This is an interesting link about coffee. It suggests that Nestle's buying policies are better than FT considering current overproduction.
http://www.eldis.org/csr/Nestlepressrelease.htm

Thinking of milk - maybe E&E could consider setting up a student co-op where students could buy milk directly, circumventing supermarkets? I don't know how this would work/if possible, but maybe it's a viable idea?

[duckgirl]

True, there are some farmers in this country that are exploited by the supermarkets. But the key difference is that they are not going to die because of it. They can still send their kids to school, feed their families (maybe not as well as they would like to but they can), they have access to health care, oppurtunities to move into other areas of work. Ultimately these farmers have the welfare state to support them.
Developing world farmers do not - if they don't get the money they deserve for what they grow, or they cannot sell their products because of the market, they die, simple as that. And they do die, in their millions.
I understand that poverty is an issue in this country - but as a rule, it does not kill.

And what's the differnce between home and abroad - you have no more connection to a chicken farmer in fife, than to a cocoa grower in Ghana. what is this obession with helping those at home?!? They're all human beings - why not first help those who are going to die because of the system we support?

Quoting flarewearer from 16:56, 13th Apr 2006

Quoting Harry Giles from 16:42, 13th Apr 2006

No, coffee farmers get the price that the market gives them for their goods. What you're implying is that what the current market dictates is necessarily "fair". What FT does is actually utilise market forces, by allowing consumers to demand more from suppliers than good quality and good price: good treatment of workers (including wage), or, more generally, "fairness". FT does not, cannot interfere with market economics, because it is not legislation: it is based solely on consumer decisions.

So in effect what you are saying is that there should be some sort of "fair" minimum price for goods, and that FT allows people to elect to "top up" the price to a sustainable level, even if overproduction has caused the price to slide below what is profitable?

This may, in some people's eyes, be a good solution or stopgap, but it still does not address the root of the problem which is overproduction.

I am all in favour of removing the subsidies for subsidy's sake and the operation of a freer market. I do not believe it is in our interest to subsidise, for instance, EU sugar farmers to produce mountains of cheap white sugar that feeds the processed food industry. (Interestingly, I have read that one of the reasons behind burgeoning numbers of "low fat" products is that sugar being so cheap, it is cheaper to take out the fat and replace it with sugar instead.)

I also believe that such things begin at home, which is why I earlier in the thread made the example of milk. If we are worried about the price that 3rd world farmers get for coffee and tea, then we should be equally worried about the price that our 1st world farmers get for the milk we pour on it. This is as great an injustice, with supermarkets and dairy cartels forcing dairy farmers to produce milk at an uneconomical price. Despite UK production dropping, they can just buy in cheap EU milk to replace it, and this is a great stick for the supermarkets and processors to beat the farmers with to lower prices. Farmers are getting forced to sell milk BELOW market value here, and if we cannot adress trade injustices at home, why are we worrying about trying to cure them around the world?

[hr]