(Inspired by the DFID Booklet)
by Louise Sutherland
A person, company or community that decides what to buy and who to buy from, has remarkable power – more power than they sometimes realise.
Trade means jobs, which means food on the table, clothes for children and a roof over your head. Our decisions about what and who we buy from are not just a decision about how we live our lives – but also how other people live their lives too.
Trade can make a lot of people a lot of money. It needn’t be a way of the rich becoming richer, it if takes place within a just and fair global system it has the ability to end poverty. The global trade system is worth $10 million a minute. In recent years, the fastest growing developing countries have been those who have been able to sell their goods abroad. In these countries, notably in East Asia, poverty has fallen rapidly – and as if to prove a point the progress stopped when economic crisis hit the region. But these are countries who were able to protect their industries while they developed and sell finished products not just raw materials. The free trade we are pushing onto poor countries is very different from the protected, carefully planned trade which has lifted East Asia out of poverty.
According to the UN, poor countries are $700 billion a year worse off because the global trading systems work against them. If Africa could increase its share of world trade by just 1 percent it would generate 5 times more income than the entire continent currently receives in aid and debt relief combined.
As markets and trade opens up, new opportunities emerge for the poor as well as the rich. If fair international rules are in place to manage this trade, then prosperity for developing countries will follow. Unfortunately, contemporary trade laws which are at the heart of globalisation, are designed by the rich powerful nations to protect their own interests. They are very far from fair. And while these rules govern international trade, they deepen poverty for the other nations.
For example, Tariffs on Processed Goods. This rule means that poor nations who export finished products to wealthy nations have to pay financial penalties. Thus the product, once on the shelves is more expensive than anything made in the EU. However, a raw product, such as cocoa, coffee or sugar can be exported to the EU with no financial penalties. So if a developing country tries to add value to a raw material, by processing cocoa into chocolate for example, the EU slaps on high tariffs. So a Ghanaian chocolate bar costs much more than a bar of chocolate made from Ghanaian cocoa but processed in Europe.
Another unfair aspect of today’s trade is within agricultural subsidies. Farmers in the West are given agricultural subsidies to help them produce food. This encourages rich countries to produce surpluses, which when they aren’t bulldozed into landfill, they are dumped onto the world markets. This huge, sudden influx of one product causes the price to collapse. This undermines the livelihood of small farmers in poor countries who were growing the same crop and trying to sell them on the same markets. As the president of one African country recently said ‘How can I convince a farmer who keeps a few dairy cows, and cannot sell the milk because the market is flooded with subsidized imported milk – that an open market is better than a closed or regulated one?’
One of the worst aspects of today’s trade rules are the World Trade Organisations rules on Patents. Patents have been put on seeds and medicines. This means farmers can be prosecuted for saving seed from their own plants, and genetic engineering technology is being used to produce plants which don’t produce seeds. This makes farmers reliant on agrochemical companies to buy seeds each year. Patents on medicines mean that poor countries can’t produce their own versions of drugs at a fraction of the cost, and they are unable to ay the high prices charged for products produced elsewhere.
Labour standards, environmental standards and health standards are never the same in developing countries as they are in the West. Powerful companies, who operate across the globe (transnationals) are barely regulated in some parts of the developing world. Understandably the governments of developing countries want investment, and they are not likely to impose strict rules on companies who say they want to set up factories, create jobs and promise to re-invigorate the economy. When transnational pay reasonable wages, respect the environment and the rights of their workers, they can help reduce poverty. But – if these companies choose to invest overseas to avoid unions, environmental legislation and to pay a pittance to maximise their own profits, they make poverty worse.
Governments can and do change the rules that define the global trading system. It is a slow process but it happens if they believe their is a mandate form voters. While you can put pressure on politicians to begin the slow huge changes required, you can also every day make choices which ensure people in poorer countries get a fair return for their product. Everyone with purchasing power has the power to make a difference to the way international trade works. This means re-directing where you spend your money and knowing about the companies you give money to.
Take food as an example, work out what you spend on food each year. Its a huge amount. Buy choosing to use some of this money on Fairtrade foods, you can be sure your money is helping farmers get a better wage and the community they live in is supported. Choosing organic food ensures the soils and wildlife is protected. If just 10% of each persons weekly shopping was Fairtrade it would be a powerful signal to the multinational dominated food industry that we the consumers are genuinely concerned about the people who grow our food.
To make sure your helping make trade ethical, remember to ask yourself...
Buying
Firstly do you NEED it? Would you give the same amount of money to a charity or homeless person? Habitat loss is the biggest driver of extinction world wide and habitat loss is driven by resource use. We are used to hearing about the loss of forest to create land for farming, perhaps many people assume that this is to grow crops for the farmer and his family? Not true. The World Bank policies mean much land is used to grow cash crops so the farmer can sell them (raising the countries gross domestic product and its ability to repay its debts) and then he can buy food for his family not grow it. So it’s our demand for products and the raw materials which go into them, which drives habitat destruction. Think wider, feel the consequences of your demand and ask yourself – do you really need that?
Secondly WHO makes it? Who owns that company and how do they operate? Never forget that your money is your vote. We create markets, we drive the global economy, we create demand and companies compete to supply it. They will produce goods cheap through low wages in overseas factories and chemical spays if you let them. You need to know who owns the company you’re purchasing from and how they operate, to make an honourable purchase. Knowledge is power and choice. Its worth subscribing to Ethical Consumer www.ethicalconsumer.org or taking part in the Druid Network Ethical Consumer magazine swap or check out the ethical company reports pages of the Network website. If you’re planning a purchase, ask the company; Do they pay more than the cost of production? Have they instigated long term contracts? Do they offer training and support? What environmental conditions do people work in? Are workers unionised? Any company should be happy to answer these questions.
Third – How does the CONNECTION feel? Make it part of your life, your Druidry. Be present, centre yourself, hold your prospective purchase, focus on it, reach through the web, hear its song, where was it made/grown? By whom? How did they feel? What is it made from? Then decide, are you happy you support that? These things happen in your name, are you proud of them? If not you can’t call it an honourable purchase, and you will know you’re creating poverty and environmental destruction to meet your needs or wants. I’m no expert at doing this, I can’t always reach the level of connection that I want, but I try and I’m learning. It’s a part of my commitment to this path to learn how to make this connection.
Creating Demand
Even if you only buy clothes in charity shops and your idea for a new wardrobe is a clothes swap with friends, you can still go into clothes shops to talk to the staff. Pick up something nice and ask where it was made. Ask with a big smile and compliment, tell them one of the things that concerns you is the wages overseas and ask if the shop has a labour policy to protect the people who produce the products it sells. The sales staff will probably have no clue and be embarrassed but, they will get the manger for you, and if they don’t, ask to talk to the manager! Most compnaies will tell you to contact the head office, ask for a contact name and address. There’s no need for aggression or anger. Markets supply demand, demand is what the customers want. Imagine if suddenly, all over the UK, people asked for fairly traded clothes and simply didn’t buy those that aren’t. Overnight the market would shift. Business reacts fast and efficiently. Many companies would simply promote their ‘codes of conduct’, many would have to actually implement them, some would see the opportunity for profit and change the way they do business.
This kind of consumer pressure has already succeeded, British campaigners have successfully persuaded some UK companies to take responsibility for the treatment of workers who make the goods they sell. For example, Oxfam’s Clean Clothes Campaign asked consumers to raise concerns with the UK’s top clothing retailers. Subsequently all five developed ethical trading policies.
Make it part of your normal routine to create demand for Fairtrade. Ask for Fairtrade coffee, especially if you can’t see it on the menu. Sound surprised if they don’t have it and then don’t order tea or coffee if they don’t sell Fairtrade. Make a point of thanking and commending staff and owners of shops which do sell Fairtrade, even if you’re not ordering it. Is your town a Fairtrade Town? There is probably a local Fairtrade group trying to get it awarded Fairtrade Town status. To do get the status, a certain number of caterers and retailers must supply Fairtrade products and the council must pass a resolution to support Fairtrade. What the public asks for business will supply. Check out http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get_involved_fairtrade_towns.htm for more information.
