Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Thus spoke the ex-CIA chief
""The first thing we have to do is destroy oil as a strategic commodity," Woolsey said."
Counting the cost
A great BBC article about the implications of the wheat price hike on Central Asia, China, Australia, Italy and Russia.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Embargo
"Despite the U.S. trade embargo, the United States is still one of the largest exporters to Cuba, though its exports -- largely food and agricultural products -- reach only about $350 million a year and have fallen slightly as Cuba has turned to other countries for food imports."
Put this piece of news in context: see in this previous post how the US exports food to Venezuela, Iran and Syria, in spite of the very very tense political situation with these countries (Iranians chant "Death to the USA" every morning before breakfast, and again after lunch to facilitate digestion). Some would say this is a calculated move to keep "unfriendly" countries dependent on cheap food, so that it hurts more when a food embargo is implemented (as in Iraq before the invasion). But then they would be conspiracy theorists.
Put this piece of news in context: see in this previous post how the US exports food to Venezuela, Iran and Syria, in spite of the very very tense political situation with these countries (Iranians chant "Death to the USA" every morning before breakfast, and again after lunch to facilitate digestion). Some would say this is a calculated move to keep "unfriendly" countries dependent on cheap food, so that it hurts more when a food embargo is implemented (as in Iraq before the invasion). But then they would be conspiracy theorists.
State of the union
"An appalling total of 144 trade unionists were murdered for defending workers' rights in 2006, while more than 800 suffered beatings or torture, according to the Annual Survey of Trade Union Rights Violations, published by the 168-million member International Trade Union Confederation. The 379-page report details nearly 5,000 arrests and more than 8,000 dismissals of workers due to their trade union activities. 484 new cases of trade unionists held in detention by governments are also documented in the report.
The anti-union activities of a number of multinational companies, including repeat offenders such as Coca Cola subsidiaries and suppliers, Wal-Mart, Goodyear, Nestlé and Bouygues come under the spotlight. Heavy repression by suppliers to well-known global brand names, especially in the textiles and agriculture sectors, is also described.
Public service and education workers faced anti-union discrimination in Algeria, Benin and Ethiopia, where the government continued its harassment of the Teachers Association. The Djibouti union centre UDT was subjected to heavy government harassment, and one of its senior officials had to flee the country in fear for his life. The Libyan and Sudanese governments also maintain heavy restrictions on freedom of association, while Egypt also imposes limits on union rights.
Tentative steps towards trade union rights in Oman and positive developments in Bahrain were overshadowed by continued severe restrictions or outright bans on union activity in much of the Middle East, notably in Saudi Arabia. Restrictions on freedom of association also continued in Jordan, Kuwait and Yemen, and the Syrian authorities exercised virtually total control of the official trade union organisation, the only one allowed. Many migrant workers throughout the Middle East faced hazardous and exploitative working conditions without any effective legal recourse. Iraqi trade unionists faced ongoing and targeted violence. Among the many attacks, one of the most appalling involved a health union leader who was abducted, tortured with an electric drill and then shot to death. Iran continued to deny basic rights to its workers, cracking down hard on independent trade union activity with mass arrests and detentions including that of a 12 year old girl who was beaten and thrown into a police van. Mansour Osanloo, head of the Tehran bus drivers' union, was held in solitary confinement for four months, and beaten and arrested a second time in November. Following his release on bail, he was once again arrested by the authorities in July 2007 and remains, along with several colleagues, in prison.
Continued violence in Palestine also affected the trade union movement. In one case, masked men threw a hand-grenade a union-run radio station and then set it on fire, injuring four people. Continued restrictions on movement of Palestinians between the West Bank and Gaza by the Israeli authorities made trade union activities even more difficult. "
Immigrants
"With a nationwide farmworker shortage threatening to leave unharvested fruits and vegetables rotting in fields, the Bush administration has begun quietly rewriting federal regulations to eliminate barriers that restrict how foreign laborers can legally be brought into the country.
The effort, urgently underway at the departments of Homeland Security, State and Labor, is meant to rescue farm owners caught in a vise between a complex process to hire legal guest workers and stepped-up enforcement that has reduced the number of illegal planters, pickers and middle managers crossing the border." (thanks D.)
The effort, urgently underway at the departments of Homeland Security, State and Labor, is meant to rescue farm owners caught in a vise between a complex process to hire legal guest workers and stepped-up enforcement that has reduced the number of illegal planters, pickers and middle managers crossing the border." (thanks D.)
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Lebanon support
A portal and database on the relief and development efforts in Lebanon. Excellent, and a good starting point for my pet project to field check the real impact of all these projects.
Chilling
"The country's leading agricultural forecaster has for the first time revealed the possible impact of climate change on Australia's farm sector.
According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, dairy, rice, cotton and horticulture will suffer significant declines in the next few decades because of rising temperatures and reduced rainfall."
I'm only blogging it to remind ourselves that Lebanon and the region import most of their wheat from Oz, and much of their meat.
Olympigs
"In recent weeks, news that hogs are being specially raised to feed the athletes at the next year's Beijing Olympics has spurred an outcry on the Internet. The pigs are reportedly being fed an organic diet and getting daily exercise, treatment that has China's bloggers variously mocking, lamenting and raging online.
"I would rather be a pig for the Olympics than a human in a coal mine!" wrote a blogger who calls himself Shiniankanchai, referring to the reported deaths of thousands of workers in China's mines so far this year."
"I would rather be a pig for the Olympics than a human in a coal mine!" wrote a blogger who calls himself Shiniankanchai, referring to the reported deaths of thousands of workers in China's mines so far this year."
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Disaster capitalism
"Klein believes that neo-liberalism belongs among "the closed, fundamentalist doctrines that cannot co-exist with other belief-systems ... The world as it is must be erased to make way for their purist invention. Rooted in biblical fantasies of great floods and great fires, it is a logic that leads ineluctably towards violence." As Klein sees it, the social breakdowns that have accompanied neo-liberal economic policies are not the result of incompetence or mismanagement. They are integral to the free-market project, which can only advance against a background of disasters."
From the Guardian review of Naomi Klein's new book: "The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism"
From the Guardian review of Naomi Klein's new book: "The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism"
Data
"Organizations that receive grants from USAID (the federal agency responsible for international aid) are strongly opposing a proposed new procedure and database to collect and retain personal information on individuals working for grantee organizations and subcontractors. The stated goal was to implement an executive order prohibiting dealings with individuals designated as terrorists as well as a specific Congressional requirement that no USAID funds go to any organization in the West Bank & Gaza that "advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity."
Much of the opposition to the plan was coordinated by InterAction (EIN 13-3287064 Form 990), which represents 165 US-based NGOs involved in international relief & development, who understandably are concerned about the collection of data, and the indication that USAID would not disclose whether any individuals passed or failed screening, making it difficult to identify and challenge incorrect information in the database. "
Much of the opposition to the plan was coordinated by InterAction (EIN 13-3287064 Form 990), which represents 165 US-based NGOs involved in international relief & development, who understandably are concerned about the collection of data, and the indication that USAID would not disclose whether any individuals passed or failed screening, making it difficult to identify and challenge incorrect information in the database. "
Friday, October 5, 2007
US aid in Lebanon
"The aid is ostensibly earmarked for post-war reconstruction, declared Washington. But the release of the funds is conditional on the the Siniora government successfully implementing a bundle of economic "reforms." Indeed, even before Congress approved the aid package, Siniora declared his government's intention to cut social security programs, privatize the electricity and telecommunications sectors, increase value added tax by two percent, and implement other measures he claimed were aimed to reduce Lebanon's $40 billion national debt. Siniora's effort to push through these measures however were met with strong popular resistance inside Lebanon that led him to reconsider the timing and strategy of implementing the "reforms.""
Gobal market, but not for labour
"The publics of the world broadly embrace key tenets of economic globalization but fear the disruptions and downsides of participating in the global economy. In rich countries as well as poor ones, most people endorse free trade, multinational corporations and free markets. However, the latest Pew Global Attitudes survey of more than 45,000 people finds they are concerned about inequality, threats to their culture, threats to the environment and threats posed by immigration. Together, these results reveal an evolving world view on globalization that is nuanced, ambivalent, and sometimes inherently contradictory.
In both affluent countries in the West and in the developing world, people are concerned about immigration. Large majorities in nearly every country surveyed express the view that there should be greater restriction of immigration and tighter control of their country's borders." (thanks D.)
Read it in context: see previous post on PEW GA survey on globalization.
In both affluent countries in the West and in the developing world, people are concerned about immigration. Large majorities in nearly every country surveyed express the view that there should be greater restriction of immigration and tighter control of their country's borders." (thanks D.)
Read it in context: see previous post on PEW GA survey on globalization.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Lebanese farm exports increase
From Saturday September 29- As-Safir. My translation from Arabic, my comments in italics at the end.
"Major increase in profits from agriculture in the Bekaa this year, for the first time in a nearly a decade.
Exports of farm produce from the Bekaa has increased by 100%, although farmers say the cost of production has also increased by 50%. This increase in exports has been attributed to favorable economic changes in the Arab countries, poor climatic conditions (cold in the beginning of the season, drought in the end) in Saudi Arabia and Syria which caused a decline in harvests, in addition to the opening of the Iraqi market, which is the largest in the Arab World. These conditions meant that Saudi Arabia was unable to export to the Gulf countries, while Syria was unable to cater for the domestic and the Iraqi markets. Supply and demand did the trick, and monetary gains were up to 3 times higher than last year.
In monetary terms, the Bekaa has exported this year $46 million worth of farm produce, compared to $24 million last year. Prices have increased throughout the Arab world, including Syria, and the Lebanese produce is reaching European and African markets. Cyprus imported last year 4 containers of cherry against 118 this year. Russia imported last year 6 containers of cherries against 127 this year. The poultry sector was also positively affected, and exports increased from $330, 000 last year to $1.3 million this year, mostly to the Iraqi market.
However, the head of the potato growers union warns of an expected decrease in the prices of potatoes (the main export) in the fall as most farmers have shifted to potato planting after this year's gains. He also demanded the Lebanese government to continue its export subsidies program expected to be reduced by 20% this year.
Another exporter indicated that this year's crops went as far as england and afganistan, but that the government was to blame for the total lack of agricultural extension and export advice and the absence of anti-dumping laws.
One of the agribusiness owners indicated that the price increase in prices of input is "mad" and that the profits this year was due to the fact that many farmers had gone out of business and that the area planted with potatoes had been reduced by 25%, which resulted in profits for those farmers who had stayed in business.
These mega profits from crop production come after many years of decline during which agricultural lands in the Bekaa turned into sheep farms."
There is plenty to learn about food and farming from this piece of news:
1. Saudi Arabia, in good years, is a competitor to Lebanon for the Gulf market (check this post). Saudi agriculture is heavily subsidized, and this is of course not a "free Arab market". Poor climatic conditions (climate change?) affected Saudi production negatively this year, but this may not be the case every year.
2. The Iraqi market is open again. This used to be the main export market for Lebanon, and there was a time before 1991 when it was impossible to eat a decent orange in Lebanon as they were all exported to Iraq.
3. While this is really good news for some farmers, the amounts we are talking about are still small (our food import bill is nearly $2 billion). This increase in exports can at least partly explain the tremendous hike in fresh food prices Lebanon has been recently witnessing. Supply and demand and market forces again.
4. The people who stand to make most of the money are the large farmers (industrial sized) and the exporters who benefit from strong support from the government export subsidy program. Yes our government does not subsidize agricultural extension, but it does subsidize the transport costs. Many exporters I meet tell me that they make their money only on the subsidies from the state, and they decide where to export to depending on the percent of the transport cost that is covered by the state. This allows them to sell cheaper (and therefore buy cheaper) and cash the subsidy.
5. I've always maintained that cherries are the best crops Lebanon can produce especially in the marginal lands at high altitudes. It is not because I am a clairvoyant, but because I have worked for 12 years in Irsaal, a village in the anti Lebanon where 5 million cherry trees have been planted in the last 50 years, in an environment that looks like a rock desert in the summer, and like Tibet in the winter. The trees grow without irrigation, on snow melt and need very little care. Cherries are also one of the most demanded food products worldwide, but it doesn't travel too well. The middle and high altitude zones of Mount Lebanon could produce a very good crop (some already do).
6. There is great fear that the whole edifice will collapse next year as many farmers produce the same crop. This is a classic situation in which profits entice more farmers to expand their cropping area by borrowing money and then find themselves confronted with a glut, and suffer heavy financial losses. Usually, governments step in to prevent this from happening. In this case, the government is just an observer, and will not use these exceptional circumstances in order to try to organize a little bit the farming sector through appropriate policies and legislations-and the provision of farm extension, of course. I had previously indicated that with the increases in world food prices, an excellent window of opportunity has opened in Lebanon to revive agriculture, and had hoped that a government (?) would seize this opportunity.
7. Finally, it is interesting to see that the alternative to crop production is sheep production. This usually happens where there is too little water for crops, and explains why desert nomads keep sheep and do not till and sow.
"Major increase in profits from agriculture in the Bekaa this year, for the first time in a nearly a decade.
Exports of farm produce from the Bekaa has increased by 100%, although farmers say the cost of production has also increased by 50%. This increase in exports has been attributed to favorable economic changes in the Arab countries, poor climatic conditions (cold in the beginning of the season, drought in the end) in Saudi Arabia and Syria which caused a decline in harvests, in addition to the opening of the Iraqi market, which is the largest in the Arab World. These conditions meant that Saudi Arabia was unable to export to the Gulf countries, while Syria was unable to cater for the domestic and the Iraqi markets. Supply and demand did the trick, and monetary gains were up to 3 times higher than last year.
In monetary terms, the Bekaa has exported this year $46 million worth of farm produce, compared to $24 million last year. Prices have increased throughout the Arab world, including Syria, and the Lebanese produce is reaching European and African markets. Cyprus imported last year 4 containers of cherry against 118 this year. Russia imported last year 6 containers of cherries against 127 this year. The poultry sector was also positively affected, and exports increased from $330, 000 last year to $1.3 million this year, mostly to the Iraqi market.
However, the head of the potato growers union warns of an expected decrease in the prices of potatoes (the main export) in the fall as most farmers have shifted to potato planting after this year's gains. He also demanded the Lebanese government to continue its export subsidies program expected to be reduced by 20% this year.
Another exporter indicated that this year's crops went as far as england and afganistan, but that the government was to blame for the total lack of agricultural extension and export advice and the absence of anti-dumping laws.
One of the agribusiness owners indicated that the price increase in prices of input is "mad" and that the profits this year was due to the fact that many farmers had gone out of business and that the area planted with potatoes had been reduced by 25%, which resulted in profits for those farmers who had stayed in business.
These mega profits from crop production come after many years of decline during which agricultural lands in the Bekaa turned into sheep farms."
There is plenty to learn about food and farming from this piece of news:
1. Saudi Arabia, in good years, is a competitor to Lebanon for the Gulf market (check this post). Saudi agriculture is heavily subsidized, and this is of course not a "free Arab market". Poor climatic conditions (climate change?) affected Saudi production negatively this year, but this may not be the case every year.
2. The Iraqi market is open again. This used to be the main export market for Lebanon, and there was a time before 1991 when it was impossible to eat a decent orange in Lebanon as they were all exported to Iraq.
3. While this is really good news for some farmers, the amounts we are talking about are still small (our food import bill is nearly $2 billion). This increase in exports can at least partly explain the tremendous hike in fresh food prices Lebanon has been recently witnessing. Supply and demand and market forces again.
4. The people who stand to make most of the money are the large farmers (industrial sized) and the exporters who benefit from strong support from the government export subsidy program. Yes our government does not subsidize agricultural extension, but it does subsidize the transport costs. Many exporters I meet tell me that they make their money only on the subsidies from the state, and they decide where to export to depending on the percent of the transport cost that is covered by the state. This allows them to sell cheaper (and therefore buy cheaper) and cash the subsidy.
5. I've always maintained that cherries are the best crops Lebanon can produce especially in the marginal lands at high altitudes. It is not because I am a clairvoyant, but because I have worked for 12 years in Irsaal, a village in the anti Lebanon where 5 million cherry trees have been planted in the last 50 years, in an environment that looks like a rock desert in the summer, and like Tibet in the winter. The trees grow without irrigation, on snow melt and need very little care. Cherries are also one of the most demanded food products worldwide, but it doesn't travel too well. The middle and high altitude zones of Mount Lebanon could produce a very good crop (some already do).
6. There is great fear that the whole edifice will collapse next year as many farmers produce the same crop. This is a classic situation in which profits entice more farmers to expand their cropping area by borrowing money and then find themselves confronted with a glut, and suffer heavy financial losses. Usually, governments step in to prevent this from happening. In this case, the government is just an observer, and will not use these exceptional circumstances in order to try to organize a little bit the farming sector through appropriate policies and legislations-and the provision of farm extension, of course. I had previously indicated that with the increases in world food prices, an excellent window of opportunity has opened in Lebanon to revive agriculture, and had hoped that a government (?) would seize this opportunity.
7. Finally, it is interesting to see that the alternative to crop production is sheep production. This usually happens where there is too little water for crops, and explains why desert nomads keep sheep and do not till and sow.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Rain?
"The overall Silver winner is Aqua Sciences whose proprietary technology harvests fresh drinking water from the sky--the last untapped aquifer--virtually anywhere on the planet even where there is no practical water infrastructure."
Transformer
"Anyone curious to know how Brazil has become what the former secretary of state, Colin L. Powell calls an “agricultural superpower” — poised to overtake the United States as the world’s leading exporter of foodstuffs — would do well to start here in this busy network of government laboratories." (thanks D.)
Haddad fiddles while Lebanon burns
From today's al Safir, a small piece of news while everybody is busy with the burning forests. (my translation, comments in italics and bold typeface mine).
Sami Haddad, Lebanon's minister of neoliberal economy and free trade, signed yesterday 3 contracts with NGOs (Lebanese? US?) to implement agricultural (???) projects financed by the US government. The ceremony took place in the presence of US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman.
These contracts are usually awarded to corporate US NGOs. This neatly recycles a big chunk of the money back to the US. Moreover, all equipment purchased by the projects usually have to be US-made. But lets wait till we learn more about these projects.
Also as I write, I have learned that ACDI-VOCA, a US development NGO (in the business of development) has been awarded one of the grants. Incidentally, there has been a controversy among NGOs around wheat monetization in the US. Read this IHT article.
These contracts aim at using the wheat donations offered by the US to Lebanon in the wake of the July 2006 war, of a total value of 25,000 tons of bread wheat.
What was the tonnage of the ammunitions offered to Israel in order to implement the July 2006 war (without talking of the political coverage, or as the Israelis put it, the political bullying to engage into the war)? Will these projects be implemented in the areas that were most affected by the war?
After the signature, ambassador Feltman talked about the US wheat, a gift to the Lebanese people from the US people. He expressed his happiness at the US support to agriculture in Lebanon and indicated that the agriculture sector in Lebanon is an important sector in terms of job opportunities and rural income.
I agree with the last statement.
Minister Haddad added: The US wheat donation was sold by bidding at a price of $5 million. A joint US-Lebanese committee was then formed to study the project proposals. 15 proposals were submitted by NGOs. Following a thorough and transparent evaluation, 3 projects were selected. They include loans, donations, and technical assistance in various areas.
Now that's interesting: first, Haddad pays $1.5 million a month from public money to subsidize wheat, so that the poor from all confessions do not reject him and his government and his "majority". Then, he gets offered wheat, but he sells it and then gives the money to corporate NGOs to implement agricultural development projects over which the government will have no authority (not necessarily a bad thing). Considering the success of similar development initiatives, we can expect agriculture to witness a major boom in the next couple of years. Unfortunately these projects are only ever evaluated by...the donors or the NGOs themselves.
Another issue: The current price of wheat is between $300 and $400 a ton, and it has been like that for a few months. Taking $350 as an average figure, the wheat should have sold for $8,750,000. They must have sold it at $200 a ton to get $5 million.
A US donation of $10 million for the reconstruction of the Naher el Bared camp was recently added.
What does this piece of news have to do with NGOs, agriculture, development or Haddad? And in what form did the donation come? As corn flakes?
Sami Haddad, Lebanon's minister of neoliberal economy and free trade, signed yesterday 3 contracts with NGOs (Lebanese? US?) to implement agricultural (???) projects financed by the US government. The ceremony took place in the presence of US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman.
These contracts are usually awarded to corporate US NGOs. This neatly recycles a big chunk of the money back to the US. Moreover, all equipment purchased by the projects usually have to be US-made. But lets wait till we learn more about these projects.
Also as I write, I have learned that ACDI-VOCA, a US development NGO (in the business of development) has been awarded one of the grants. Incidentally, there has been a controversy among NGOs around wheat monetization in the US. Read this IHT article.
These contracts aim at using the wheat donations offered by the US to Lebanon in the wake of the July 2006 war, of a total value of 25,000 tons of bread wheat.
What was the tonnage of the ammunitions offered to Israel in order to implement the July 2006 war (without talking of the political coverage, or as the Israelis put it, the political bullying to engage into the war)? Will these projects be implemented in the areas that were most affected by the war?
After the signature, ambassador Feltman talked about the US wheat, a gift to the Lebanese people from the US people. He expressed his happiness at the US support to agriculture in Lebanon and indicated that the agriculture sector in Lebanon is an important sector in terms of job opportunities and rural income.
I agree with the last statement.
Minister Haddad added: The US wheat donation was sold by bidding at a price of $5 million. A joint US-Lebanese committee was then formed to study the project proposals. 15 proposals were submitted by NGOs. Following a thorough and transparent evaluation, 3 projects were selected. They include loans, donations, and technical assistance in various areas.
Now that's interesting: first, Haddad pays $1.5 million a month from public money to subsidize wheat, so that the poor from all confessions do not reject him and his government and his "majority". Then, he gets offered wheat, but he sells it and then gives the money to corporate NGOs to implement agricultural development projects over which the government will have no authority (not necessarily a bad thing). Considering the success of similar development initiatives, we can expect agriculture to witness a major boom in the next couple of years. Unfortunately these projects are only ever evaluated by...the donors or the NGOs themselves.
Another issue: The current price of wheat is between $300 and $400 a ton, and it has been like that for a few months. Taking $350 as an average figure, the wheat should have sold for $8,750,000. They must have sold it at $200 a ton to get $5 million.
A US donation of $10 million for the reconstruction of the Naher el Bared camp was recently added.
What does this piece of news have to do with NGOs, agriculture, development or Haddad? And in what form did the donation come? As corn flakes?
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Bye o fuel
“The end of the ethanol boom is possibly in sight and may already be here,” said Neil E. Harl, an economics professor emeritus at Iowa Sate University who lectures on ethanol and is a consultant for producers. “This is a dangerous time for people who are making investments.”
All is fair in food and drink
Lots of talk about fair trade (lots of posts on this blog too) but D. just sent me this. My comments in italics.
"Rafael de Paiva was skeptical at first. If he wanted a “fair trade” certification for his coffee crop, the Brazilian farmer would have to adhere to a long list of rules on pesticides, farming techniques, recycling and other matters. He even had to show that his children were enrolled in school.
Very often, the conditions for certifications are too difficult and cannot be met by those in need. Farmers would want certification to put their kids in school, so imposing the condition on them before they make enough money to put their kids in school seems a bit odd.
Mr. Paiva’s beans will be in the store-brand coffee sold by Sam’s Club, the warehouse chain of wal mart Stores. Dunkin’ Donuts, Mc Donald's and Starbucks already sell some fair trade coffee.
A common criticism of FT: its use by mega corporations which exploit their own workers as a marketing tool to attract bourgeois liberals in need of conscience whitewash. but another argument goes: Isn't it better to latch on to these corporations as they provide volume of sale that benefit more farmers?
“We see a real momentum now with big companies and institutions switching to fair trade,” said Paul Rice, president and chief executive of TransFair USA, the only independent fair trade certifier in the United States.
What are the other certifiers? dependent? on who? Or is there only one certifier. This is another common complaint: certification has become a business: a cold, calculating business, in which clients are sought, and projections and business figures have to be met. Many farmers cannot afford it.
According to Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, a group of fair trade certifiers, consumers spent approximately $2.2 billion on certified products in 2006, a 42 percent increase over the previous year, benefiting over seven million people in developing countries.
Interesting figure, which I assume is for the US only, but still a long way from the spending on natural foods and nutritional supplement expected to reach $87 billions in 2007. Expected as people are more interested in their own health than in helping others.
Fair trade produce remains a minuscule percentage of world trade, but it is growing. Only 3.3 percent of coffee sold in the United States in 2006 was certified fair trade, but that was more than eight times the level in 2001, according to TransFair USA.
Others argue that fair trade coffee is as exploitive as the conventional kind, especially in countries that produce the highest-quality beans — like Colombia, Ethiopia and Guatemala. Fair trade farmers there are barely paid more than their counterparts in Brazil, though their crops become gourmet brands, selling for a hefty markup, said Geoff Watts, vice president for coffee at Chicago’s Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea, a coffee importer."
"Rafael de Paiva was skeptical at first. If he wanted a “fair trade” certification for his coffee crop, the Brazilian farmer would have to adhere to a long list of rules on pesticides, farming techniques, recycling and other matters. He even had to show that his children were enrolled in school.
Very often, the conditions for certifications are too difficult and cannot be met by those in need. Farmers would want certification to put their kids in school, so imposing the condition on them before they make enough money to put their kids in school seems a bit odd.
Mr. Paiva’s beans will be in the store-brand coffee sold by Sam’s Club, the warehouse chain of wal mart Stores. Dunkin’ Donuts, Mc Donald's and Starbucks already sell some fair trade coffee.
A common criticism of FT: its use by mega corporations which exploit their own workers as a marketing tool to attract bourgeois liberals in need of conscience whitewash. but another argument goes: Isn't it better to latch on to these corporations as they provide volume of sale that benefit more farmers?
“We see a real momentum now with big companies and institutions switching to fair trade,” said Paul Rice, president and chief executive of TransFair USA, the only independent fair trade certifier in the United States.
What are the other certifiers? dependent? on who? Or is there only one certifier. This is another common complaint: certification has become a business: a cold, calculating business, in which clients are sought, and projections and business figures have to be met. Many farmers cannot afford it.
According to Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, a group of fair trade certifiers, consumers spent approximately $2.2 billion on certified products in 2006, a 42 percent increase over the previous year, benefiting over seven million people in developing countries.
Interesting figure, which I assume is for the US only, but still a long way from the spending on natural foods and nutritional supplement expected to reach $87 billions in 2007. Expected as people are more interested in their own health than in helping others.
Fair trade produce remains a minuscule percentage of world trade, but it is growing. Only 3.3 percent of coffee sold in the United States in 2006 was certified fair trade, but that was more than eight times the level in 2001, according to TransFair USA.
Others argue that fair trade coffee is as exploitive as the conventional kind, especially in countries that produce the highest-quality beans — like Colombia, Ethiopia and Guatemala. Fair trade farmers there are barely paid more than their counterparts in Brazil, though their crops become gourmet brands, selling for a hefty markup, said Geoff Watts, vice president for coffee at Chicago’s Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea, a coffee importer."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
+081.jpg)
Posts
