Traveling with Dr. Bronner’s & Alaffia

Driving to Accra, Ghana after getting off a long flight from the U.S. was sure to be an adventure. I’m with David Bronner, Cosmic Engagement Officer of Dr. Bronner’s, a $125-million-dollar natural product brand on the way to visit their palm oil project. And to add to the excitement, our travel companion for this 8-day journey to Ghana and Togo will be Olowo-n’djo Tchala, founder and President of Alaffia and a native of Togo. Alaffia is another inspirational high quality organic fair trade body care brand that works throughout Togo and Ghana.

Both organizations believe working with organized communities is the only path forward to building a more just economy. We are all aligned on this journey. There will be a total of eight of us, four Dr. Bronner’s people, three from Alaffia, and then me, Fair World Project’s Executive Director. This will be my third trip to Ghana and Togo to visit Dr. Bronner’s and Alaffia projects. It is not an easy trip but definitely worth the hours spent in planes and automobiles.

Dr. Bronner’s palm oil project, Serendipalm, is the only sustainably produced organic, fair trade palm oil in the world and is used in their bar soaps. I have not traveled to Ghana with David before, but I did travel with Olowo-n’djo to Serendipalm in 2016 and this is when he learned that he could buy Serendipalm’s palm kernels, a byproduct of producing palm oil which Serendipalm had not needed and often sold into the local market.

My job, as Executive Director of a fair trade advocacy organization, is to figure out how to engage people to be politically active citizens and socially conscious consumers. Throughout my tenure in the fair trade movement, I have found that my passion also is connecting like-minded businesses so they can work together, learn and grow from each other and ultimately build a more just economy that benefits local communities. And this was exactly what had happened.

Our 3-hour drive after getting off an overnight flight was tough. But finally, we arrived at the plot of land that Serendipalm has purchased in order to monitor the carbon sequestration. While so much of what we hear about palm oil is about deforestation and destruction, this is the opposite. Here, palm trees grow in a fully integrated agroforestry system where intercropping and cover crops are key to sequestering carbon to help reverse climate change.

A New Fair Trade Charter, An Ongoing Vision for a Just Economy

I return from this trip the day that the new International Fair Trade Charter is released. The document was a combined effort of several fair trade organizations, including Fair World Project, with the goal of sharing with the world the vision of what global trade could do if it was based on solidarity, justice, equity, and sustainable development. The new international fair trade charter deepens our understanding of why fair trade is so important. We’ve reached an extreme of globalization in which large corporations continually chase cheaper labor practices across the globe. Industrial agriculture is expanding, deforesting land around the globe at an alarming rate. Income inequality is on the rise and large corporate actors have ever-greater wealth than small-scale producers.

Yet there’s another way to do business. I’m traveling with two of the most successful soap and beauty products companies in the natural products industry. On the store shelves, conventional wisdom tells us that they are competitors. But here in their supply chains, they’re working as collaborators.

This trip encompasses what I believe together we can accomplish in the fair trade movement. Working and organizing together in our advocacy work, our production work, our marketing, our promotions, and most importantly, supporting small-scale producer organizations within their own communities under their own rules. Together, we can build a more just economy on the principles of fairness, equity, and justice for all.

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Enter CADO. Deep in the foothills of the Ecuadorian Andes, small-scale family farmers are growing sugar cane on steep hills.? CADO, or the Sweet Organic Agro-craft Consortium (Consorcio Agro-artesanal Dulce Org?nico in Spanish) is a consortium of five small regional sugar cane producer groups, representing 18 communities in two provinces. Founded in 2003 with the support Rural Forestation and Progress Network Corporation or CRACYP, an Ecuadorean Non Governmental Organization, CADO?s mission is to facilitate fair prices and local self-development for member families.

CADO formed to provide value added product for sugar cane producers in the provinces of Bolivar and Cotopaxi, two of Ecuador?s the poorest provinces. With 198 member families, CADO has the capacity to produce 24,000 tons of organic certified alcohol annually. Located in a prolific sugar producing country, CADO undertook the challenge of finding a niche for producing socially and environmentally sustainable alcohol. At present, CADO produces organic ethanol for use in extraction of compounds, potable organic alcohol for use in the liquor industry and organic alcohol for use in perfumery or industrial processes.

Despite early setbacks, CADO has successfully secured contracts with the UK?s Body Shop and Dr. Bronner?s Magic Soaps. CADO attained The Body Shop sources CADO alcohol for a number of products, including its Love Etc?? perfume. Dr. Bronner?s will use CADO?s alcohol in its organic and fair trade Hand Sanitizing Spray as well as other products. Dr. Bronner?s will be the first to market products with certified organic and fair trade alcohol in the United States.? CADO was recently certified fair trade under IMO?s Fair For Life program.

More than just a mechanism for commercializing organic alcohol, CADO has embraced and advanced the fair trade ethic of true sustainability. Not only must CADO members commit to organic practices, and agree to have their land certified organic and fair trade, they pledge not only to leave existing forest intact, but also reforest degraded or logged land. CADO?s own internal social premium model requires a percentage of all sales be earmarked for a small reforestation fund. Maintaining and reestablishing the native forest is essential to both alcohol distillation and the integrity of the local ecosystem. To distill sugar cane juice into alcohol, families need access to an ample water supply. Without proper forest cover, the land dries up and families are left without water for personal consumption and the ability to distill alcohol.

Key to CADO?s approach to fair trade is fair and stable prices for its members. CADO members receive upwards of double the local market price for alcohol. According CADO member and Internal Control System team member, Luis Fredy Avalos, CADO?s program has provided a ?for my family, a fair price [for our organic alcohol] is very important. It allows us to provide for our family and send our children to school. Before fair trade, we were at the mercy of intermediary buyers.?

More than fair prices for their products, CADO members regularly point out two important outcomes of their organization: technology transfer and improved access to education. CADO facilitates microloans to families to purchase new distilling equipment, organic farming inputs and other resources to improve efficiency and quality of their alcohol. Rural technical advisors provide on the ground training for families on everything from organic farming techniques to quality control measures for the distillation equipment.

Prior to CADO, local community members rarely advanced beyond a 5th grade education. Children often worked side by side with their parents in the fields out of economic necessity. Today, the younger generation of CADO families universally graduating from high school. CADO policies and fair trade standards require that children not actively labor, but attend school. CADO?s efforts at improving efficiency on the farm and raising the standard of living for members has greatly facilitated educational endeavors for the communities? young people.? For Carlos Cabrera, CRACYP Director, CADO?s efforts go beyond simply ?creating a stable market for producers. Implementing traceability and internal control measures, key requirements in organic and fair trade certification, have greatly improved communities? environmental health and have assured that more children are now attending school.?

Looking to the future, CADO and CRACYP are setting their sites on diversification and cooperation. Next in the product pipeline is a ?Cocoa Cr?me? liqueur, blending organic and fair trade dairy, sugar, and cocoa from producer groups in the area. CADO is also working on developing a Farmstay EcoTourism Project and providing a sustainable alternative to the agrofuel craze. If the demand for agrofuels continues to rise, fertile land will continue to be converted from growing food to producing agrofuels. CADO?s vision provides a model for utilizing marginalized land, while safeguarding local ecosystems and provide just? and dignified work to vulnerable communities.

For CADO President Cecilia Arcos, ?fair trade is more than a fair price. It is about building consciousness in our communities. It is about acquiring the tools to be self-reliant?.It is about lifting up the poorest of our members and making sure no one is left behind.?

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