May 7, 2013 • 29 mins
The West has gotten rich off the backs of underpaid labor living elsewhere; people who are dedicated to Fair Trade feel it's time people at a disadvantage should stop being exploited. The concept is simple - just pay workers fairly for their labor.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark and there's Child's Wi Chuck Bryant. This is the
five hundred and something time that I said that, Oh yeah,
we're not to the sixes yet, are we? No? No,
(00:21):
it's gonna be a little while. What are we mid five? Yeah?
I don't know. Like we hit five D word around
January D of January. It's a lot of knowledge we're
doling out for free, folks. We're like, we're in like
like five twenty maybe, Yeah, I thought there might be
more than that. Um, you're doing okay, I'm great, good?
(00:42):
How are you okay? Like my back hurts a little bit,
and Yumi is convinced that it's a kidney infection onset,
so she's like, you need to drink a lot of
apple cider, vinegar and baking soda diluted in water and
cranbery juice. That's what I'm doing. And water. Yeah, that
went too, But I've got stuff diluted in water, so
that counts. But it's um kind of rough. You know,
(01:05):
I don't know that your coffee counts? Is water? No,
it does actually, you know that the whole you should
drink eight eight ounce glasses of water a day. You
can factor in coffee. Yeah, and it's totally made up,
Like there's no one's ever said that you really should
do that. It just kind of came on as like
an early meme, I guess. And there's never There's not
(01:25):
any evidence that an adult human living in a temperate
climate of average health couldn't survive without any additional water
on a daily basis, because we get it from things
like food and other stuff. I think the idea is
that you benefit from drinking water. Again, there's not necessarily
any scientific evidence. That pretty much made up. I'm not
(01:48):
so sure. I'm telling you look it up back to you, Okay,
all right, we'll have a look up off. Okay. Um,
But that's not what this is about, Chuck, Nor is
it about my possibly um impending kidney infects in hospitalization.
It is about the idea that everyone around the world
deserves to make a decent, sustainable living wage, agreed, or
(02:14):
should at the very least get a should see the
fruits of their labor in a fair way. Yeah, this
kind of flies in the face of something called um capitalism.
The free market system a little bit, because in the
free market system, one of the big things you have
is pretty much every man for himself. Now, everyone in
(02:35):
a free market system, a completely theoretical, unfettered free market system,
has the opportunity to enjoy the fruit of his or
her labors, has the opportunity to make a decent, livable wage.
But one could also argue that the bounce of power
has tipped so far in favor of a consolidated, internationally
(02:57):
connected few that at that's just not a real possibilitynymore,
that theory that theoretical version is now an impossibility, right,
I think, hey, Mountain, that might be a good time
to recommend to people to go listen to our previous podcast,
Is the free market really free? Oh? Yeah, that's a
good one. Wasn't that the name of that one? That
was a good one. That was a good one. Um. So,
(03:19):
because this balance of power has tipped so far post
pretty much post World War two is when it happened.
There are there are some people out there who have
come up with the idea that maybe we should go
an extra mile and make sure that the people who
are actually making all the things we enjoy, For example, coffee, wine,
(03:40):
soccer balls. People who bananas, bananas, it's a big one.
People who actually make these things get a an income
that is like something that anyone who is on the
receiving end of these bananas and coffee would recognize as
a livable amount of money in return for what they're
doing us. That's right. This is not a call for communism.
(04:04):
This is a call for fair pay via something called
fair trade. And um, the idea is that uh, you
and I and whoever else wants to support this kind
of cause might not mind going into their local and
we're gonna use coffee a lot, because that's one of
the big daddies. Yeah, that's might not mind going into
(04:26):
their their coffee shop or their grocery store wherever you
hunt down your coffee and paying a little bit more
for your coffee. It's got that fair trade stamp on
their knowing that ultimately the worker who picked those beans
is going to be cared for in a you know,
humane fair way. It's gonna get a decent amount of
money for their for their product. Um, and you you
(04:47):
kind of hit something on the head when you said,
seeing that fair trade label, there's a really big distinction
between a product that carries a certified fair trade label, yeah,
and something that's marketed as fairly treated that means nothing.
It means absolutely nothing like that that they might as
well say, like the contents inside are orange and green maybe. Yeah,
(05:11):
it's the whole mislabeling, misleading, misleading labeling of things, which
is just like the organic deal certified organic versus these
you know, this crap food that will say like contains
naturally uh natural ingredients or things like that. Emily has
to fight spedal all the time with her company because
(05:31):
she's one of the people that tries to only use
you know, fair trade ingredients and certified organic. And she
gets angry every day when she sees products body products
that slap something on their label like naturally good and
people think that means it's all natural or all natural.
That doesn't mean that it's organic or all natural. It's
(05:55):
it needs to be regulated more in it. And it's
so that's such a cynical thing to exploit, Yeah, like
thing that really meant something at one point in time
for dollars, you know, to to market something that doesn't
mean anything, it's actually not good for you, and marketing
it as good for you while using and already established
UM consumer trusted label or phrasing. It's just that's said.
(06:20):
It's one of it's one of the wrong things in
the world. But let's just say that that's why a
fair trade people, fair trade groups have UM. They jealously
guard their h there UM labels. Yeah, so that when
you do see them, you can't trust what's going on.
And they'll you know, companies at mislabeled or mislead with
their labels also make their labels look like the other
(06:42):
labels even and the font and the color is just
like it's so underhanded, it's really awful. So let's talk
about the background of this alright. It started in the
nineteen fifties with something called Alternative Trade Organizations a t
o S, not the Fraternity a t S. They were
doing beer bonds and you know other things. Uh, I
(07:03):
couldn't say what I was gonna say. I think everybody knows. Uh.
They were humanitarian groups that started this, and basically they
wanted to alleviate poverty in developing nations by cutting out
middlemen between small producers in the north Northern hemisphere and
small businesses in the southern hemisphere. More profits directly going
(07:24):
to workers who picked the bean again with coffee, and
then I guess over time they found that this this
process could work. But you really do need middlemen, right
So yeah, not always, but depending on where you are
in the process or right, but if you're using the
existing I guess trade routes and system of trade that's
(07:45):
been established globally in the world, um, you there are middlemen.
Like you. You have a coffee grower in Ethiopia, he
can't get that to you. You know in New England,
you do need a middlement. What they figured out with
fair trade is that you can certify the people in
between to make sure that the money is getting to
(08:07):
the producer. And rather than cutting out the middleman to
increase the income of the of the original producer in
the developing country, you go to the consumer on the
consuming and and say, hey, you mind paying a little
more for this and in return, we will guarantee you
that this the person you who made this coffee that
you're enjoying, gets that money. That extra money, like you
(08:31):
are basically essentially sending it to this guy, and we're
the ones who are going to make sure that happens
and We're gonna do so through this labeling. That's right.
Uh In is actually when the labeling itself was born
with a Dutch ato called uh soladara dad. Is that
not right? Solidad as you see, we got yet another
(08:52):
like email about our pronunciation. We try people, that's part
of the charm of the show. Some people don't like it.
I unders in um so solidaridad from uh from the
Dutch region of the world, from Amsterdam, from the Netherlands,
from Holland, from all those places. They said, you know what,
(09:12):
we should label these things, help people out when they're shopping,
get them in the main street markets without compromising. You know,
the trust that consumer has in these products. And that
is basically where fair trade was born. And we do
have one stat here in two thousand one, not super recent,
but just to show you and how people pay for coffee.
(09:36):
Coffee fluctuates in price. It's like you know, any commodity.
So uh in two thousand one the price stepped really
low and the coffee growers were receiving only about forty
five cents per pound for coffee, but fair trade coffee
buyers paid a dollar twenty one per pound that year
to ensure that these people, despite the fluctuations, were able
(09:57):
to keep the lights on for their business. Essentially, because
every fair trade organization sets a minimum price, a minimum
fair price that their their producers are gonna get no
matter what, no matter what the market does, no matter what.
And I believe if the market goes up, they get
they get the higher of the two, but at the
(10:17):
very least they're getting that minimum price for their product.
So what is an f l O. This is sort
of how it starts or how the process itself starts,
or you want to talk about that. Yeah, alright, the
fair Trade Labeling Organization. So that's that's one of them.
There's there's a number of labeling organizations, like there's Transfer USA,
(10:39):
there's a European European Fair Trade Association, right, And apparently
I guess the f l O is like the the
agency that oversees the agencies. That's the impression that I have.
But basically say that you want to um, say that
you you are a coffee roaster, and again we're going
with coffee because that's the big one, and you say, hey,
(11:00):
I really want to get in on this fair trade
action for whatever reason. It doesn't matter if you want
to increase your own sales or whatever. It doesn't matter.
You can't exploit this process, right, No, but that's the thing, like,
like the coffee roaster can be like, you know, everybody's
into this fair trade thing, and I think I can
sell a lot more if I go through this process,
(11:20):
So let me do it. And they contact the FLO
or a labeling organization. They say, great, we will sell
you a license for ten thou pounds of fair trade
coffee beans. So it's a contract for a set amount. Now,
what they could do is set the coffee roaster up
with an already certified fair trade UM producer and supply chain.
(11:44):
Or they can go in and say we can go
ahead and certify your existing supply chain and producer. And
that's what they do. The the coffee roaster pays for
that license, sends the f l O out, They go
through the supply chain make sure that all this money
is going back to the producer who is expected to
get it right. Yeah, And they actually send people, human
(12:06):
people visit farms to ensure that all their business practices
and their farmers are adhering to these procedures. And not
only that, they also add a dash of like sustainability,
like they're that they're not using like horrible environmental techniques
for stuff. And but yes, basically to make sure that
this producer isn't just like a you know, dull disguised
(12:27):
as like some some dude, you know, like they're going
to do some detective work and once they figure out
that everything's legit and it falls into the fair trade standards,
which we'll talk about later, then that's certified, the license
is exercised, and that ten thousand pounds is delivered and
that guy can put that on the ten thousand pounds. Yeah,
(12:47):
and it's not always just a one time visit. They
can also follow up with periodic inspections to ensure that,
you know, that you keep up with that kind of
governance and you didn't just like pull a fast one
on them and you know, get out your house in
order for one day, you know. While and there there's
the licenses. Usually there's like there's a contract involved, like
(13:07):
so the middlemen who are involved have to participate in
these standards. And one of the standards is you have
to sign like at least a six month contract usually,
which is actually kind of a lot for these producers
because a middleman can be like, oh, this guy's selling
it for way cheaper. I'm going over to him. You know,
this producer is guaranteed six months of going to this
middleman and um and getting the money from them. Well yeah,
(13:31):
and like you said, six months doesn't sound like much,
but I get the feeling that it was just like
it's the wild West out there. Yeah, you know, like
you can drop someone from day to day. Yeah. Well
they can be like, well, this guy's selling for a
penny lesson you force this guy down, and now this
guy is down to two cents, So you go to
another guy and be like, this guy's down to two cents.
You can just play as many small farmers as you
want against off against one another and and drive prices
(13:53):
down as low as you want. That. Fair trade prevents
that from happening by forcing middleman to to sign a contract. Yeah,
so that's one of the tenants. Um. Another is direct
trade between the producers and buyers. So they try to
eliminate the middleman when they can. In Central America they
call the middleman coyote. Yeah, I mean, I thought that
was interesting. Um. So in order to do this, they
(14:14):
encourage these farmers to get together and form co ops
export co ops band together. You know you've got a
little more power. Um. So something that that he points
out here too is that the exporter, if it's a plantation,
the fair trade standard requires that national laws governing the
minimum wage UH and regulations covering the conditions be upheld
(14:35):
and the workers rights are all upheld as well. So
that's when you're not I guess forming a co op
no um, but fair trade tends to encourage co ops
democratically run co ops. Um. But yeah, they're they're they're
they're not necessarily completely opposed to the idea of certifying
(14:58):
something that's run as a plant takes rather than a
co op, as long as the workers are treated well.
And one of the other things they do, like if
there is a if they do run into a plantation
system and the workers are fine, everything's good, they attach
what's called the social premium. So if you are, say,
there's a chocolate importer called Double Chocolate, the U B
(15:19):
B l E. I think it's in the UK, and
they they sell fair trade and chocolate, and they on
their site they were saying that they pay an extra
um I think two hundred dollars a ton of cocoa
per ton of cocoa. And that's just a social premium
that's on top of whatever the market prices or whatever
the minimum fair trade prices, whatever is higher. In addition
(15:39):
that they pay an extra two hundred bucks right off
the top for a ton of cocoa. And that is
that doesn't necessarily go right back to the um the producer.
It goes back to the producer's community, and it is
used for things like scholarships, water projects, and notation projects
like schools whatever. Um. But it's that social premium is
an addition to raising the individual's income, it raises the
(16:03):
well being of the entire community. Yeah. Well with the
idea too that that's just gonna be good for everyone's
business ultimately. Well, yeah, that's the thing. That's that's where
it's kind of it turns capitalism in on it on itself.
Like the idea that you can democratize through capitalism is
a huge like neo con idea. Yeah, and I mean
it's true, like it does work. Um, but they're saying,
(16:26):
but we need to do that through a certain measure
of Marxism, right. It's kind of kind of funny. Yeah. Uh.
And the final tenant, which you already sort of mentioned,
was the minimum prices for farmers. The idea what they
want here is obviously to make sure that the price
that the farmer gets is more than the cost of production,
because you know, everyone's out to make a dollar here
(16:47):
and there. Um. And so they actually take a survey
um to make sure that the you know, the price
is right on the money, and it covers things like
the cost of living, um, cost of production, and even
the cost of complying with the fair trade standards. So
they roll that in there as part of their accounting
as well. Yeah, and we should say also, um, it
is the to purchase a license for fair trade and stuff.
(17:13):
It's on the ultimate I guess distributor, the coffee roaster
in the case of coffee, UM, or the chocolate producer
in the case of cocoa, purchases whatever. Um. And before
I think until two thousand and four, like it was
free if you were the actual person producing like the
raw material the good like the coffee or the cocoa.
(17:34):
But then the flo said, you know what, we need
to charge you guys a little bit too. So I
think that further encourages co ops because a small farmer
in in. You know, Ethiopia can't necessarily afford whatever it
costs to be in the system. Okay, that makes sense.
And let's let's take a second here, chuck um to
remind people exactly what the disparity is between the people
(17:58):
who eat the chocolate and the people who produced the cocoa. So,
say you were living in Teamore or Lesti in Southeast
Africa in two thousand five, guess how much you're annual
income would be expected to be. Well, what am I
doing in my growing You're just a president of it.
You're doing whatever you want, but you're you're an average.
(18:18):
I have a petticab. Okay, you have a petticab since
you live in Teamre or Lestie. I think I'm saying
that right, lest one of the two man, I hope
I'm saying that right. You made four d in two
thousand five for the whole year and two in Malawi.
You made five six dollars in Somalia's six hundred dollars
(18:39):
in Congo six seventy five for a year. A year,
three hundred and sixty five days of labor, or a
large portion of three sixty five days. Take Christmas off
in the petticab by the all right, three hundred and
sixty four days of labor got you four hundred bucks,
and teamore or lesti um on the high end in Naritria,
you made up whopping nine in seventeen dollars. In the
(19:02):
United States and two thousand five average US citizen spends
a hundred and fourteen dollars a day spends. Yeah, so
that's that's the concept of fair trade is like, you
have this extra couple of dollars, pay it for this,
and we will make sure that that guy in Eritrea
(19:24):
gets it, and he's going to benefit, and in fact,
the whole world will benefit because there's that whole democratic
peace theory where like supposedly there's a correlation between democratization
and a decrease in war and belligerence between nations. So
who knows, it could just be beneficial for everybody. Yeah,
and this isn't welfare. This isn't uh give taking from
(19:45):
the rich and giving texting the rich and giving it
to the poor who you know can't get off their
butts and go work. These are people working very hard
at their job that you are ultimately benefiting from. When
you take that step of coffee that you're enjoying, and
it's it's like we did it in our own country
when we started enacting, like saying hey, kids shouldn't work
(20:07):
in factories and they should make eight cents a week.
We did it here in the fair trade label ensures
that wherever your product is coming from around the world,
that the same thing is going to be you know, happening. Yeah,
it's it's intervention exploitation. But they're still critics. Yeah, there
are definitely critics and criticisms um in with fair trade,
(20:28):
and I mean they're legitimate too. Yeah, I mean not
a lot of criticisms about people saying, hey, you shouldn't
do this and take care of workers. Probably there's probably
a handful of people out there that think that it's
more the um but generally, yeah, it's a criticism of
fair trade in the fair trade organizations, not of the
people who are actually, you know, producing this stuff. Yeah,
(20:49):
basically saying you're ignoring the basic tenets of supply and
demand in a way because you're you're attaching an inflated
price above the market value without doing anything else right,
and because it's difficult to kind of get these things
to market more difficult than than a regular thing. There's
(21:10):
been a real focus on things like coffee or bananas,
so in these areas where you can grow coffee and
can grow bananas, since fair Trade is saying, hey, if
you grow this stuff and you do it the way
we want you to, you'll get four times what you
know you're getting paid. Without us, more people are gonna
flock from cotton to coffee, and there's gonna be an
(21:31):
oversupply and that's ultimately going to drive prices down for everybody. Right.
Another criticism is that fair trade generally UM addresses these
co ops that we were talking about, and maybe if
you were just a single farmer, that's like, I don't
want to be in a co op, but I still
want to be fair trade. It's a little more difficult,
and UM these co ops just like anything else, when
(21:54):
you get more than two people together in a room,
there is a possibility for greeting corruption. So some of
these co ops have been attacked for mismanaging fair trade proceeds,
and UH supporters say, you know what, we can only
do what we can. We're trying our best. We're not
saying we're going to solve the world's poverty problems. But
what we are saying is that we can ensure that
(22:15):
these farmers and these co ops and these workers are
getting paid at fair wage enough to live on. Uh
when you eat your delicious or drink your delicious roasted
coffeesh And I guess I the one that makes the
most sense to me is the encouraging oversupply on the
market and driving down prices for other people and everybody
in general. Yeah, but um, yeah, and it really that
(22:38):
that could be very easily solved by just focusing on
other products as well. Yeah. Right now, they say about
eight hundred thousand farmers are benefiting from fair trade right
now worldwide. That was a Yeah, that's an o eight
stant So I bet it's over a million now because
it's growing baby. Yeah. I mean that's another thing too,
is that the sectors are growing to like, uh, in
(23:00):
the early two thousand's, fair trade coffee grew like within
a couple of years. So, I mean, like it's a
good way to go if you're a poverty stricken coffee farmer.
And it depends on where you are what kind of
products are available. It's not like every everything you find
in your grocery store will have a fair trade option.
Um yeah, but it's kind of been presented and marketing
(23:22):
a real like laid back hippie granola away and it's
like like, hey, we'll put it out there and tell
people about it and if they want it, that's awesome.
There's been no like the they If you took the
same kind of marketing uh that's applied to the stuff
that's not produced fairly, and applied it to fairly traded stuff,
(23:44):
I'm quite sure you could generate a lot more interest
and have people clamoring for like I want fairly traded
beef for whatever. People are gonna want that stuff. They
just don't know that they want it yet necessarily, and
I think that they're I think that the NGOs who
are doing fair trade could do more. Who diversify If
I'm wrong, correct me someone who's in the field. You
(24:04):
got anything else that's fair trade? Hey? Speaking of NGOs,
our favorite co ed cooperative for education. They are who
took us down to Guatemala and we got to see
their handiwork in person, and it is good work. Yeah.
They seek to break the cycle of poverty using education
and they've got a great model. Like you said, we've
seen it firsthand, we believe in it, and so we
(24:25):
are making a call out here. We're plugging for them
because they have uh, well, they're in need. Okay. They
are looking to triple the number of students they serve
over the next three years, so they're gonna need the
help with some stuff you should know, listeners. All right,
so we got some details for you, folks, the who
of this. We're talking fifty four Indigenous Mayan middle school
students right right right, These students are getting help literally,
(24:48):
like firsthand help. Yeah. They're getting help through scholarships that
cover tuition, school fees and a youth development program that
foster's community service and leadership among the students. Right. There
are two scholarship levels. There's the Diploma sponsor, which is
seventy bucks a month, and there's an honorable sponsor, which
is thirty five bucks a month. Those are some cute names.
That's very cute. So when all this is going down, is, uh,
(25:10):
they want fifty four students sponsored by the end of
the year. Is there anything greater, Josh than finding a
sponsor for every single student? No, And we can do it.
I mean, we have a lot of listeners, and we
have a lot of listeners with big hearts. Actually there
is one thing greater. They could cover these students and
have a waiting lis for next year. Oh that'd be
even better. Yeah, okay, So this is how you do this, guys.
You can go to the website www. Dot Cooperative for
(25:34):
Education dot org. You can sign up to sponsor a
child today. Simply click on the donate now button in
the top right hand at the corner that's right. And
you know what, a lot of our listeners have gotten
involved over the years with co ED and gotten a
lot out of it in return as humans as humans. Yeah,
it's a genuinely great organization that we've seen, like you said, firsthand. Um,
so we would encourage all of you to go help.
(25:56):
So that's um Cooperative for Education dot org. You can
become either a very acutely named diploma sponsor at seventy
bucks a month or an honorable sponsor at thirty five
bucks a month. And uh, if you do that, if
you sign up for it, let us know because we
want to thank you on the air. Sure cool, it's
great idea, So go co it, go co a. Thanks friends,
(26:17):
So okay, Chuck. Hold on, let's let's take a message break.
Huh and then listener mail are really good one this week?
Oh now it's time for listener mail, says Jerry. Yeah,
I'm gonna call this, uh grief. We got a lot
(26:38):
of really great responses on the Grief podcast. A lot
of people reached out more like had just had people
pass away in their family and listen to the podcast
that week and helped them out. And uh, we always
like hearing those things. So this is from John. Guys
would like to thank you for your Grief podcast that
helped me with a grieving process for my best friend
(26:58):
and brother, Mike. In his death. He was driving in
Northern Alberta UH in mid December when he lost control
of his car after crossing railroad tracks, got hit by
an oncoming car and died on impact. Our family flew
there from Vancouver and only had a few hours to spend.
Because of some white mishaps, we couldn't even bring his
ashes back with us. Mailing his ashes was not recommended
(27:20):
to the end of the Christmas season, so we are
planning on having a funeral for him without ashes. Luckily,
the company he was to work for he was a
heavy equipment mechanic and the student at the time, um
he Uh. They heard of the news and their head
safety guy personally delivered his ashes to our home. We
then flew to Manila on Christmas Day and right back
in Canada on New Year's I haven't felt the usual
(27:42):
symptoms of grief yet, but I'm sure I'll break down
and start bawling on the sea bus or something, which
would be super awkward. Uh. The first month was definitely
the hardest. The moment I always the moment I heard
the news has been burnt in my mind. That in
a single flower in front of his dorm room from
one of the students. The tears really started flowing after
I saw that, guys and I saw life in a
(28:03):
completely different way. The little things really do count anyway.
Mike was most likely listening to podcast at the time.
That's what he does when he buys groceries, and he
was on the way to the grocery store. Your voices,
in fact, may have been the last he heard. Who knows. Uh.
There was a frozen pineapple in the crash site, and
I know that was his because he loved that stuff.
(28:23):
But that said, just in case, he's listening to the
podcast in another life, could you please do one on
pineapples and that would be for Mike and John. We
will certainly look into pineapples my friend and cool. Yeah,
I think we should. Yeah, hang in there, dude, it's
very tough. I can't imagine going through something like that,
but I'm glad we could help in some small, tiny,
(28:45):
tiny way. Yeah, and thanks for letting us know about that.
We appreciate it. Um. Wow, that was you selected, maybe
the best one. Yeah, and we got some good emails
about Greek too. Yeah, thanks to everyone who's senting those
in and like people or their souls sometimes it's very touching. Yeah,
we hope we make you feel better if you want
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Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark and there's Child's Wi Chuck Bryant. This is the
five hundred and something time that I said that, Oh yeah,
we're not to the sixes yet, are we? No? No,
(00:21):
it's gonna be a little while. What are we mid five? Yeah?
I don't know. Like we hit five D word around
January D of January. It's a lot of knowledge we're
doling out for free, folks. We're like, we're in like
like five twenty maybe, Yeah, I thought there might be
more than that. Um, you're doing okay, I'm great, good?
(00:42):
How are you okay? Like my back hurts a little bit,
and Yumi is convinced that it's a kidney infection onset,
so she's like, you need to drink a lot of
apple cider, vinegar and baking soda diluted in water and
cranbery juice. That's what I'm doing. And water. Yeah, that
went too, But I've got stuff diluted in water, so
that counts. But it's um kind of rough. You know,
(01:05):
I don't know that your coffee counts? Is water? No,
it does actually, you know that the whole you should
drink eight eight ounce glasses of water a day. You
can factor in coffee. Yeah, and it's totally made up,
Like there's no one's ever said that you really should
do that. It just kind of came on as like
an early meme, I guess. And there's never There's not
(01:25):
any evidence that an adult human living in a temperate
climate of average health couldn't survive without any additional water
on a daily basis, because we get it from things
like food and other stuff. I think the idea is
that you benefit from drinking water. Again, there's not necessarily
any scientific evidence. That pretty much made up. I'm not
(01:48):
so sure. I'm telling you look it up back to you, Okay,
all right, we'll have a look up off. Okay. Um,
But that's not what this is about, Chuck, Nor is
it about my possibly um impending kidney infects in hospitalization.
It is about the idea that everyone around the world
deserves to make a decent, sustainable living wage, agreed, or
(02:14):
should at the very least get a should see the
fruits of their labor in a fair way. Yeah, this
kind of flies in the face of something called um capitalism.
The free market system a little bit, because in the
free market system, one of the big things you have
is pretty much every man for himself. Now, everyone in
(02:35):
a free market system, a completely theoretical, unfettered free market system,
has the opportunity to enjoy the fruit of his or
her labors, has the opportunity to make a decent, livable wage.
But one could also argue that the bounce of power
has tipped so far in favor of a consolidated, internationally
(02:57):
connected few that at that's just not a real possibilitynymore,
that theory that theoretical version is now an impossibility, right,
I think, hey, Mountain, that might be a good time
to recommend to people to go listen to our previous podcast,
Is the free market really free? Oh? Yeah, that's a
good one. Wasn't that the name of that one? That
was a good one. That was a good one. Um. So,
(03:19):
because this balance of power has tipped so far post
pretty much post World War two is when it happened.
There are there are some people out there who have
come up with the idea that maybe we should go
an extra mile and make sure that the people who
are actually making all the things we enjoy, For example, coffee, wine,
(03:40):
soccer balls. People who bananas, bananas, it's a big one.
People who actually make these things get a an income
that is like something that anyone who is on the
receiving end of these bananas and coffee would recognize as
a livable amount of money in return for what they're
doing us. That's right. This is not a call for communism.
(04:04):
This is a call for fair pay via something called
fair trade. And um, the idea is that uh, you
and I and whoever else wants to support this kind
of cause might not mind going into their local and
we're gonna use coffee a lot, because that's one of
the big daddies. Yeah, that's might not mind going into
(04:26):
their their coffee shop or their grocery store wherever you
hunt down your coffee and paying a little bit more
for your coffee. It's got that fair trade stamp on
their knowing that ultimately the worker who picked those beans
is going to be cared for in a you know,
humane fair way. It's gonna get a decent amount of
money for their for their product. Um, and you you
(04:47):
kind of hit something on the head when you said,
seeing that fair trade label, there's a really big distinction
between a product that carries a certified fair trade label, yeah,
and something that's marketed as fairly treated that means nothing.
It means absolutely nothing like that that they might as
well say, like the contents inside are orange and green maybe. Yeah,
(05:11):
it's the whole mislabeling, misleading, misleading labeling of things, which
is just like the organic deal certified organic versus these
you know, this crap food that will say like contains
naturally uh natural ingredients or things like that. Emily has
to fight spedal all the time with her company because
(05:31):
she's one of the people that tries to only use
you know, fair trade ingredients and certified organic. And she
gets angry every day when she sees products body products
that slap something on their label like naturally good and
people think that means it's all natural or all natural.
That doesn't mean that it's organic or all natural. It's
(05:55):
it needs to be regulated more in it. And it's
so that's such a cynical thing to exploit, Yeah, like
thing that really meant something at one point in time
for dollars, you know, to to market something that doesn't
mean anything, it's actually not good for you, and marketing
it as good for you while using and already established
UM consumer trusted label or phrasing. It's just that's said.
(06:20):
It's one of it's one of the wrong things in
the world. But let's just say that that's why a
fair trade people, fair trade groups have UM. They jealously
guard their h there UM labels. Yeah, so that when
you do see them, you can't trust what's going on.
And they'll you know, companies at mislabeled or mislead with
their labels also make their labels look like the other
(06:42):
labels even and the font and the color is just
like it's so underhanded, it's really awful. So let's talk
about the background of this alright. It started in the
nineteen fifties with something called Alternative Trade Organizations a t
o S, not the Fraternity a t S. They were
doing beer bonds and you know other things. Uh, I
(07:03):
couldn't say what I was gonna say. I think everybody knows. Uh.
They were humanitarian groups that started this, and basically they
wanted to alleviate poverty in developing nations by cutting out
middlemen between small producers in the north Northern hemisphere and
small businesses in the southern hemisphere. More profits directly going
(07:24):
to workers who picked the bean again with coffee, and
then I guess over time they found that this this
process could work. But you really do need middlemen, right
So yeah, not always, but depending on where you are
in the process or right, but if you're using the
existing I guess trade routes and system of trade that's
(07:45):
been established globally in the world, um, you there are middlemen.
Like you. You have a coffee grower in Ethiopia, he
can't get that to you. You know in New England,
you do need a middlement. What they figured out with
fair trade is that you can certify the people in
between to make sure that the money is getting to
(08:07):
the producer. And rather than cutting out the middleman to
increase the income of the of the original producer in
the developing country, you go to the consumer on the
consuming and and say, hey, you mind paying a little
more for this and in return, we will guarantee you
that this the person you who made this coffee that
you're enjoying, gets that money. That extra money, like you
(08:31):
are basically essentially sending it to this guy, and we're
the ones who are going to make sure that happens
and We're gonna do so through this labeling. That's right.
Uh In is actually when the labeling itself was born
with a Dutch ato called uh soladara dad. Is that
not right? Solidad as you see, we got yet another
(08:52):
like email about our pronunciation. We try people, that's part
of the charm of the show. Some people don't like it.
I unders in um so solidaridad from uh from the
Dutch region of the world, from Amsterdam, from the Netherlands,
from Holland, from all those places. They said, you know what,
(09:12):
we should label these things, help people out when they're shopping,
get them in the main street markets without compromising. You know,
the trust that consumer has in these products. And that
is basically where fair trade was born. And we do
have one stat here in two thousand one, not super recent,
but just to show you and how people pay for coffee.
(09:36):
Coffee fluctuates in price. It's like you know, any commodity.
So uh in two thousand one the price stepped really
low and the coffee growers were receiving only about forty
five cents per pound for coffee, but fair trade coffee
buyers paid a dollar twenty one per pound that year
to ensure that these people, despite the fluctuations, were able
(09:57):
to keep the lights on for their business. Essentially, because
every fair trade organization sets a minimum price, a minimum
fair price that their their producers are gonna get no
matter what, no matter what the market does, no matter what.
And I believe if the market goes up, they get
they get the higher of the two, but at the
(10:17):
very least they're getting that minimum price for their product.
So what is an f l O. This is sort
of how it starts or how the process itself starts,
or you want to talk about that. Yeah, alright, the
fair Trade Labeling Organization. So that's that's one of them.
There's there's a number of labeling organizations, like there's Transfer USA,
(10:39):
there's a European European Fair Trade Association, right, And apparently
I guess the f l O is like the the
agency that oversees the agencies. That's the impression that I have.
But basically say that you want to um, say that
you you are a coffee roaster, and again we're going
with coffee because that's the big one, and you say, hey,
(11:00):
I really want to get in on this fair trade
action for whatever reason. It doesn't matter if you want
to increase your own sales or whatever. It doesn't matter.
You can't exploit this process, right, No, but that's the thing, like,
like the coffee roaster can be like, you know, everybody's
into this fair trade thing, and I think I can
sell a lot more if I go through this process,
(11:20):
So let me do it. And they contact the FLO
or a labeling organization. They say, great, we will sell
you a license for ten thou pounds of fair trade
coffee beans. So it's a contract for a set amount. Now,
what they could do is set the coffee roaster up
with an already certified fair trade UM producer and supply chain.
(11:44):
Or they can go in and say we can go
ahead and certify your existing supply chain and producer. And
that's what they do. The the coffee roaster pays for
that license, sends the f l O out, They go
through the supply chain make sure that all this money
is going back to the producer who is expected to
get it right. Yeah, And they actually send people, human
(12:06):
people visit farms to ensure that all their business practices
and their farmers are adhering to these procedures. And not
only that, they also add a dash of like sustainability,
like they're that they're not using like horrible environmental techniques
for stuff. And but yes, basically to make sure that
this producer isn't just like a you know, dull disguised
(12:27):
as like some some dude, you know, like they're going
to do some detective work and once they figure out
that everything's legit and it falls into the fair trade standards,
which we'll talk about later, then that's certified, the license
is exercised, and that ten thousand pounds is delivered and
that guy can put that on the ten thousand pounds. Yeah,
(12:47):
and it's not always just a one time visit. They
can also follow up with periodic inspections to ensure that,
you know, that you keep up with that kind of
governance and you didn't just like pull a fast one
on them and you know, get out your house in
order for one day, you know. While and there there's
the licenses. Usually there's like there's a contract involved, like
(13:07):
so the middlemen who are involved have to participate in
these standards. And one of the standards is you have
to sign like at least a six month contract usually,
which is actually kind of a lot for these producers
because a middleman can be like, oh, this guy's selling
it for way cheaper. I'm going over to him. You know,
this producer is guaranteed six months of going to this
middleman and um and getting the money from them. Well yeah,
(13:31):
and like you said, six months doesn't sound like much,
but I get the feeling that it was just like
it's the wild West out there. Yeah, you know, like
you can drop someone from day to day. Yeah. Well
they can be like, well, this guy's selling for a
penny lesson you force this guy down, and now this
guy is down to two cents, So you go to
another guy and be like, this guy's down to two cents.
You can just play as many small farmers as you
want against off against one another and and drive prices
(13:53):
down as low as you want. That. Fair trade prevents
that from happening by forcing middleman to to sign a contract. Yeah,
so that's one of the tenants. Um. Another is direct
trade between the producers and buyers. So they try to
eliminate the middleman when they can. In Central America they
call the middleman coyote. Yeah, I mean, I thought that
was interesting. Um. So in order to do this, they
(14:14):
encourage these farmers to get together and form co ops
export co ops band together. You know you've got a
little more power. Um. So something that that he points
out here too is that the exporter, if it's a plantation,
the fair trade standard requires that national laws governing the
minimum wage UH and regulations covering the conditions be upheld
(14:35):
and the workers rights are all upheld as well. So
that's when you're not I guess forming a co op
no um, but fair trade tends to encourage co ops
democratically run co ops. Um. But yeah, they're they're they're
they're not necessarily completely opposed to the idea of certifying
(14:58):
something that's run as a plant takes rather than a
co op, as long as the workers are treated well.
And one of the other things they do, like if
there is a if they do run into a plantation
system and the workers are fine, everything's good, they attach
what's called the social premium. So if you are, say,
there's a chocolate importer called Double Chocolate, the U B
(15:19):
B l E. I think it's in the UK, and
they they sell fair trade and chocolate, and they on
their site they were saying that they pay an extra
um I think two hundred dollars a ton of cocoa
per ton of cocoa. And that's just a social premium
that's on top of whatever the market prices or whatever
the minimum fair trade prices, whatever is higher. In addition
(15:39):
that they pay an extra two hundred bucks right off
the top for a ton of cocoa. And that is
that doesn't necessarily go right back to the um the producer.
It goes back to the producer's community, and it is
used for things like scholarships, water projects, and notation projects
like schools whatever. Um. But it's that social premium is
an addition to raising the individual's income, it raises the
(16:03):
well being of the entire community. Yeah. Well with the
idea too that that's just gonna be good for everyone's
business ultimately. Well, yeah, that's the thing. That's that's where
it's kind of it turns capitalism in on it on itself.
Like the idea that you can democratize through capitalism is
a huge like neo con idea. Yeah, and I mean
it's true, like it does work. Um, but they're saying,
(16:26):
but we need to do that through a certain measure
of Marxism, right. It's kind of kind of funny. Yeah. Uh.
And the final tenant, which you already sort of mentioned,
was the minimum prices for farmers. The idea what they
want here is obviously to make sure that the price
that the farmer gets is more than the cost of production,
because you know, everyone's out to make a dollar here
(16:47):
and there. Um. And so they actually take a survey
um to make sure that the you know, the price
is right on the money, and it covers things like
the cost of living, um, cost of production, and even
the cost of complying with the fair trade standards. So
they roll that in there as part of their accounting
as well. Yeah, and we should say also, um, it
is the to purchase a license for fair trade and stuff.
(17:13):
It's on the ultimate I guess distributor, the coffee roaster
in the case of coffee, UM, or the chocolate producer
in the case of cocoa, purchases whatever. Um. And before
I think until two thousand and four, like it was
free if you were the actual person producing like the
raw material the good like the coffee or the cocoa.
(17:34):
But then the flo said, you know what, we need
to charge you guys a little bit too. So I
think that further encourages co ops because a small farmer
in in. You know, Ethiopia can't necessarily afford whatever it
costs to be in the system. Okay, that makes sense.
And let's let's take a second here, chuck um to
remind people exactly what the disparity is between the people
(17:58):
who eat the chocolate and the people who produced the cocoa. So,
say you were living in Teamore or Lesti in Southeast
Africa in two thousand five, guess how much you're annual
income would be expected to be. Well, what am I
doing in my growing You're just a president of it.
You're doing whatever you want, but you're you're an average.
(18:18):
I have a petticab. Okay, you have a petticab since
you live in Teamre or Lestie. I think I'm saying
that right, lest one of the two man, I hope
I'm saying that right. You made four d in two
thousand five for the whole year and two in Malawi.
You made five six dollars in Somalia's six hundred dollars
(18:39):
in Congo six seventy five for a year. A year,
three hundred and sixty five days of labor, or a
large portion of three sixty five days. Take Christmas off
in the petticab by the all right, three hundred and
sixty four days of labor got you four hundred bucks,
and teamore or lesti um on the high end in Naritria,
you made up whopping nine in seventeen dollars. In the
(19:02):
United States and two thousand five average US citizen spends
a hundred and fourteen dollars a day spends. Yeah, so
that's that's the concept of fair trade is like, you
have this extra couple of dollars, pay it for this,
and we will make sure that that guy in Eritrea
(19:24):
gets it, and he's going to benefit, and in fact,
the whole world will benefit because there's that whole democratic
peace theory where like supposedly there's a correlation between democratization
and a decrease in war and belligerence between nations. So
who knows, it could just be beneficial for everybody. Yeah,
and this isn't welfare. This isn't uh give taking from
(19:45):
the rich and giving texting the rich and giving it
to the poor who you know can't get off their
butts and go work. These are people working very hard
at their job that you are ultimately benefiting from. When
you take that step of coffee that you're enjoying, and
it's it's like we did it in our own country
when we started enacting, like saying hey, kids shouldn't work
(20:07):
in factories and they should make eight cents a week.
We did it here in the fair trade label ensures
that wherever your product is coming from around the world,
that the same thing is going to be you know, happening. Yeah,
it's it's intervention exploitation. But they're still critics. Yeah, there
are definitely critics and criticisms um in with fair trade,
(20:28):
and I mean they're legitimate too. Yeah, I mean not
a lot of criticisms about people saying, hey, you shouldn't
do this and take care of workers. Probably there's probably
a handful of people out there that think that it's
more the um but generally, yeah, it's a criticism of
fair trade in the fair trade organizations, not of the
people who are actually, you know, producing this stuff. Yeah,
(20:49):
basically saying you're ignoring the basic tenets of supply and
demand in a way because you're you're attaching an inflated
price above the market value without doing anything else right,
and because it's difficult to kind of get these things
to market more difficult than than a regular thing. There's
(21:10):
been a real focus on things like coffee or bananas,
so in these areas where you can grow coffee and
can grow bananas, since fair Trade is saying, hey, if
you grow this stuff and you do it the way
we want you to, you'll get four times what you
know you're getting paid. Without us, more people are gonna
flock from cotton to coffee, and there's gonna be an
(21:31):
oversupply and that's ultimately going to drive prices down for everybody. Right.
Another criticism is that fair trade generally UM addresses these
co ops that we were talking about, and maybe if
you were just a single farmer, that's like, I don't
want to be in a co op, but I still
want to be fair trade. It's a little more difficult,
and UM these co ops just like anything else, when
(21:54):
you get more than two people together in a room,
there is a possibility for greeting corruption. So some of
these co ops have been attacked for mismanaging fair trade proceeds,
and UH supporters say, you know what, we can only
do what we can. We're trying our best. We're not
saying we're going to solve the world's poverty problems. But
what we are saying is that we can ensure that
(22:15):
these farmers and these co ops and these workers are
getting paid at fair wage enough to live on. Uh
when you eat your delicious or drink your delicious roasted
coffeesh And I guess I the one that makes the
most sense to me is the encouraging oversupply on the
market and driving down prices for other people and everybody
in general. Yeah, but um, yeah, and it really that
(22:38):
that could be very easily solved by just focusing on
other products as well. Yeah. Right now, they say about
eight hundred thousand farmers are benefiting from fair trade right
now worldwide. That was a Yeah, that's an o eight
stant So I bet it's over a million now because
it's growing baby. Yeah. I mean that's another thing too,
is that the sectors are growing to like, uh, in
(23:00):
the early two thousand's, fair trade coffee grew like within
a couple of years. So, I mean, like it's a
good way to go if you're a poverty stricken coffee farmer.
And it depends on where you are what kind of
products are available. It's not like every everything you find
in your grocery store will have a fair trade option.
Um yeah, but it's kind of been presented and marketing
(23:22):
a real like laid back hippie granola away and it's
like like, hey, we'll put it out there and tell
people about it and if they want it, that's awesome.
There's been no like the they If you took the
same kind of marketing uh that's applied to the stuff
that's not produced fairly, and applied it to fairly traded stuff,
(23:44):
I'm quite sure you could generate a lot more interest
and have people clamoring for like I want fairly traded
beef for whatever. People are gonna want that stuff. They
just don't know that they want it yet necessarily, and
I think that they're I think that the NGOs who
are doing fair trade could do more. Who diversify If
I'm wrong, correct me someone who's in the field. You
(24:04):
got anything else that's fair trade? Hey? Speaking of NGOs,
our favorite co ed cooperative for education. They are who
took us down to Guatemala and we got to see
their handiwork in person, and it is good work. Yeah.
They seek to break the cycle of poverty using education
and they've got a great model. Like you said, we've
seen it firsthand, we believe in it, and so we
(24:25):
are making a call out here. We're plugging for them
because they have uh, well, they're in need. Okay. They
are looking to triple the number of students they serve
over the next three years, so they're gonna need the
help with some stuff you should know, listeners. All right,
so we got some details for you, folks, the who
of this. We're talking fifty four Indigenous Mayan middle school
students right right right, These students are getting help literally,
(24:48):
like firsthand help. Yeah. They're getting help through scholarships that
cover tuition, school fees and a youth development program that
foster's community service and leadership among the students. Right. There
are two scholarship levels. There's the Diploma sponsor, which is
seventy bucks a month, and there's an honorable sponsor, which
is thirty five bucks a month. Those are some cute names.
That's very cute. So when all this is going down, is, uh,
(25:10):
they want fifty four students sponsored by the end of
the year. Is there anything greater, Josh than finding a
sponsor for every single student? No, And we can do it.
I mean, we have a lot of listeners, and we
have a lot of listeners with big hearts. Actually there
is one thing greater. They could cover these students and
have a waiting lis for next year. Oh that'd be
even better. Yeah, okay, So this is how you do this, guys.
You can go to the website www. Dot Cooperative for
(25:34):
Education dot org. You can sign up to sponsor a
child today. Simply click on the donate now button in
the top right hand at the corner that's right. And
you know what, a lot of our listeners have gotten
involved over the years with co ED and gotten a
lot out of it in return as humans as humans. Yeah,
it's a genuinely great organization that we've seen, like you said, firsthand. Um,
so we would encourage all of you to go help.
(25:56):
So that's um Cooperative for Education dot org. You can
become either a very acutely named diploma sponsor at seventy
bucks a month or an honorable sponsor at thirty five
bucks a month. And uh, if you do that, if
you sign up for it, let us know because we
want to thank you on the air. Sure cool, it's
great idea, So go co it, go co a. Thanks friends,
(26:17):
So okay, Chuck. Hold on, let's let's take a message break.
Huh and then listener mail are really good one this week?
Oh now it's time for listener mail, says Jerry. Yeah,
I'm gonna call this, uh grief. We got a lot
(26:38):
of really great responses on the Grief podcast. A lot
of people reached out more like had just had people
pass away in their family and listen to the podcast
that week and helped them out. And uh, we always
like hearing those things. So this is from John. Guys
would like to thank you for your Grief podcast that
helped me with a grieving process for my best friend
(26:58):
and brother, Mike. In his death. He was driving in
Northern Alberta UH in mid December when he lost control
of his car after crossing railroad tracks, got hit by
an oncoming car and died on impact. Our family flew
there from Vancouver and only had a few hours to spend.
Because of some white mishaps, we couldn't even bring his
ashes back with us. Mailing his ashes was not recommended
(27:20):
to the end of the Christmas season, so we are
planning on having a funeral for him without ashes. Luckily,
the company he was to work for he was a
heavy equipment mechanic and the student at the time, um
he Uh. They heard of the news and their head
safety guy personally delivered his ashes to our home. We
then flew to Manila on Christmas Day and right back
in Canada on New Year's I haven't felt the usual
(27:42):
symptoms of grief yet, but I'm sure I'll break down
and start bawling on the sea bus or something, which
would be super awkward. Uh. The first month was definitely
the hardest. The moment I always the moment I heard
the news has been burnt in my mind. That in
a single flower in front of his dorm room from
one of the students. The tears really started flowing after
I saw that, guys and I saw life in a
(28:03):
completely different way. The little things really do count anyway.
Mike was most likely listening to podcast at the time.
That's what he does when he buys groceries, and he
was on the way to the grocery store. Your voices,
in fact, may have been the last he heard. Who knows. Uh.
There was a frozen pineapple in the crash site, and
I know that was his because he loved that stuff.
(28:23):
But that said, just in case, he's listening to the
podcast in another life, could you please do one on
pineapples and that would be for Mike and John. We
will certainly look into pineapples my friend and cool. Yeah,
I think we should. Yeah, hang in there, dude, it's
very tough. I can't imagine going through something like that,
but I'm glad we could help in some small, tiny,
(28:45):
tiny way. Yeah, and thanks for letting us know about that.
We appreciate it. Um. Wow, that was you selected, maybe
the best one. Yeah, and we got some good emails
about Greek too. Yeah, thanks to everyone who's senting those
in and like people or their souls sometimes it's very touching. Yeah,
we hope we make you feel better if you want
to tell us a story about how we made your
(29:08):
family feel a little bit better or you or whatever,
as long as we didn't make you feel worse, although
we should probably hear about that too. You can tweet
to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
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You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
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website Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on
(29:36):
this and thousands of other topics because it how stuff
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