Record-breaking heat waves, long-term drought, “100-year floods” in consecutive years, and increasingly extreme superstorms are becoming the new normal. The planet is now facing an unprecedented era of accelerating and intensifying global climate change, with negative impacts already being widely felt. While global climate change will impact nearly everyone and everything, the greatest impact is already being felt by farmers and anyone who eats food.

When we think of climate change and global warming, visions of coal-fired power plants and solar panels come to mind. Policy discussions and personal action usually revolve around hybrid cars, energy-efficient homes and debates about the latest technological solutions. However, the global agriculture system is at the heart of both the problem and the solution.

Industrial agriculture is a key driver in the generation of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, heavy machinery, monocultures, land change, deforestation, refrigeration, waste and transportation are all part of a food system that generates significant emissions and contributes greatly to global climate change. Industrial agricultural practices, from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) to synthetic fertilizer-intensive corn and soy monocultures, genetically modified to tolerate huge amounts of herbicide, not only contribute considerable amounts of GHGs, but also underpin an inequitable and unhealthy global food system. Modern conventional agriculture is a fossil fuel-based, energy-intensive industry that is aligned with biotech, trade and energy interests, versus farmer and consumers priorities.

Farms and farmers are in the crosshairs of climate change. Though farmers have seen negative impacts related to climate change for decades, these impacts have been exacerbated in recent years. Even relatively small temperature increases are having significant impacts on farming, including accelerated desertification and salinization of arable land, increased presence of pests, crop losses due to high temperatures and flooding, and, paradoxically, increased clean water scarcity.

While many people may be familiar with the term “peak oil” to describe the diminishing supply of petroleum, few are familiar or prepared for “peak coffee.” Farmers and scientists now openly discuss the notion of “endangered crops,” including everything from cocoa and wine grapes to salmon and peanuts. The emergence of super-charged pests related to climate change, like the “La Roya” coffee fungus in Central America, is threatening not only our morning cup of joe, but the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has detailed how much of Ivory Coast and Ghana, the two largest cocoa-producing countries in the world, will be too hot to grow cocoa by 2030. The average cocoa farmer’s plot in Ghana is five hectares, and farmers there are very reliant on income from cocoa sales.

Compared to large-scale industrial farms, small-scale agroecological farms not only use fewer fossil fuel-based fertilizer inputs and emit less GHGs, including methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide (CO2), but they also have the potential to actually reverse climate change by sequestering CO2 from the air into the soil year after year. According to the Rodale Institute, small-scale farmers and pastoralists could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available, safe and inexpensive agroecological management practices that emphasize diversity, traditional knowledge, agroforestry, landscape complexity, and water and soil management techniques, including cover cropping, composting and water harvesting.

Importantly, agroecology can not only sequester upwards of 7,000 pounds of CO2 per acre per year, but it can actually boosts crop yields. In fact, recent studies by GRAIN (www.grain.org) demonstrate that small-scale farmers already feed the majority of the world with less than a quarter of all farmland. Addressing climate change on the farm can not only tackle the challenging task of agriculture-generated GHGs, but it can also produce more food with fewer fossil fuels. In other words, as the ETC Group (www.etcgoup.org) has highlighted, industrial agriculture uses 70% of the world’s agricultural resources to produce just 30% of the global food supply, while small-scale farmers provide 70% of the global food supply while using only 30% of agricultural resources.

Small-scale farmers are especially critical to confronting the food and farming crisis at the root of climate change. Small-scale farms are demonstrably more resilient in the face of severe climatic events, weathering major storms much more effectively than large-scale industrial farms. Small-scale, agroecological farmers in particular have faired comparatively better after major hurricanes and storms. According to Food First executive Eric Holt-Gimenez, following Hurricane Mitch in 1998, a large-scale study on 180 communities of smallholder farms in Nicaragua demonstrated that farming plots cropped using simple agroecological methods, including rock bunds or dikes, green manure, crop rotation, the incorporation of stubble, ditches, terraces, barriers, mulch, legumes and trees, plowing parallel to the slope, live fences and zero-tillage, had on average 40% more topsoil, higher field moisture and fewer economic losses than control plots on conventional farms. Moreover, on average, the agroecological plots lost 18% less arable land to landslides and experienced 69% less erosion, compared to conventional farms.

In addition to their adaptability and resilience in the face of climate change, small-scale farmers play many other critical roles, from feeding their local communities to providing ecological services to the global community. As described by UC Berkeley Professor of Agroecology Miguel Altieri, small-scale farms act as biodiversity reservoirs. Compared to large-scale industrial monoculture operations, which plant just one variety of one crop, small-scale farmers often cultivate dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties and species used for food, fiber, fodder, fuel and medicine. It is not uncommon for small-scale farmers to plant a healthy genetic diversity of crops adapted to local conditions and well-suited for climatic variability and pest resistance. Agricultural biodiversity not only nourishes local farming communities and hedges against market and weather fluctuations, but it also fosters critical habitat for other flora and fauna. Farmer knowledge and social capital are crucial common denominators for vibrant and functional farming communities. Without the traditional knowledge of farmers, there is little hope to address climate change on the farm in a meaningful way.

While small-scale farmers are by and large more productive than large-scale farmers and play key roles in confronting climate change, we are losing them in many places, while large-scale farms are getting bigger and gaining more political and economic influence. Small-scale farmers and pastoralists are increasingly endangered and vulnerable to unfair trade agreements, collapsing financial markets, the export-oriented cash crops that global agriculture fuels, land grabs, the expansion of speculation within the food market, and the privatization of genetic resources, among other threats. Current prevailing policies and practices in trade, land use, energy use and patent law favor large-scale agribusinesses that contribute to climate change, while making it more difficult for small-scale sustainable farmers to stay on the land where they are able to produce food for the world and mitigate climate change. Without safeguards and support, we are putting both the global food supply and combating the climate crisis at risk.

Fair trade and climate change

Fair trade is often characterized as a “trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade.” Fair trade principles include long-term direct trading relationships, payment of fair prices and wages, no child, forced or otherwise exploited labor, workplace non-discrimination, gender equity, and freedom of association, among others. But fair trade is proving to be more than its original mandate, as it relates to climate change. Fair trade premiums — the additional sums of money beyond the fair trade price that are paid to producers for social, environmental and economic development projects — are proving to be effective vehicles for addressing climate change at the local level.

For example, COOCAFE, a coffee cooperative in Costa Rica, used its fair trade premiums to greatly reduce the amount of water used to wash coffee beans, allowing for other farmers to plant shade trees around their crops, which is good for both the quality of their crops and the environment. In Sri Lanka, the Serendipol fair trade organic coconut project uses its fair trade premium to provide free compost to all member farmers. In Uganda, tea farmers are reproducing drought-resistant varieties for distribution to other growers.

Beyond fair trade premiums, strong fair trade farmer organizations are critical vehicles for fortifying local farming communities through farmer exchange, education and advocacy. Fair trade farmer networks are integral for advancing agrocecology and social justice in the Global South.

Moving from despair to action

Author and activist Rebecca Solnit famously said of climate change that “It’s bigger than everything else.” Climate change is at the intersection of many social and environmental justice issues, and it is forcing us to question every aspect of our society and economy, including how we produce and distribute our food. The stakes are certainly high — and the window of opportunity is quickly closing.

Facing down climate change is both a challenge and an opportunity. Recreating a political economy that fosters and safeguards small-scale farmers is critical to addressing not only climate change but hunger and inequality as well. There are no policy “silver bullets” per se, but reforming the trade, subsidy and financial sectors is a good start. While we cannot buy our way out of the climate crisis with market alternatives alone, harnessing consumers’ purchasing power does make a difference. Committed fair trade brands, partnering with small-scale family farmers, are leading the transition to a just and climate-friendly economy — and purchasing from these brands deepens the impact of fair trade on local communities.

Last, but not least, taking small, yet impactful steps at home can have huge positive benefits. Simple actions, like home composting and gardening, can not only reduce one’s carbon footprint and feed one’s family, but can also directly connect one with the global movement of small-scale farmers addressing global climate change.

Here are some ways to take action:

1. Support Fair World Project’s Climate Policy Platform. FWP is coordinating a global effort to restructure local, national and international policy in favor of small-scale agroecological farmers. Visit www.fairworldproject.org/platform for more information.
2. Plant a seed. Personal action does have an impact and can connect one to the greater global movement. Visit www.fairworldproject.org/seed for more information.
3. Support fair trade committed brands. Committed fair trade brands are spearheading climate change adaptation, mitigation and reversal efforts on the ground. www.fairworldproject.org/get-involved/mission-driven-brands/ for more information.

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What follows is an excerpt from a longer open letter by Dr. Vandana Shiva to heads of state in both India and the U.S. outlining her case for seed sovereignty. The letter was written on the eve of a proposed agreement between the two countries that would threaten the rights of farmers to save seeds. It covers flaws in the logic behind countries offering seed patents, introduces the unequivocal concept that life is not an invention, and reviews several examples of companies attempting to claim and patent nature as their own invention. In many instances, civil society has fought back and won these “biopiracy” cases, but this open letter is a call for an end to the regulatory environment that allows patent applications and biopiracy in the first place, and for changes to restore the time-honored rights of farmers and home gardeners to save their seeds.

LIFE IS NOT AN INVENTION
BIOPIRACY IS NOT “INNOVATION”

Biopiracy is another example of false claims to “inventions.” Over the past decade, through new property rights, corporations have gained control over the diversity of life on earth and people’s indigenous knowledge. There is no innovation involved in these cases; they are instruments of monopoly control over life itself. Patents on living resources and indigenous knowledge are an enclosure of the biological and intellectual commons. Life forms have been redefined as “manufacture,” and “machines,” robbing life of its integrity and self-organization. Traditional knowledge is being pirated and patented, unleashing a new epidemic of biopiracy.

• Patenting of Neem: The patenting of the fungicidal properties of neem was a blatant example of biopiracy and indigenous knowledge. But on May 10, the European Patent Office (EPO) revoked the patent (No. 0436257 B1) granted to the United States Department of Agriculture and the multinational corporation W. R. Grace for a method of controlling fungi on plants by the aid of an extract of seeds from the neem tree. The challenge to the patent of neem was made at the Munich office of the EPO by three groups (the European Parliament’s Green Party, Dr. Vandana Shiva of RFSTE, and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture) who challenged it on the grounds of “lack of novelty and inventive step.” They demanded the invalidation of the patent among others on the grounds that the fungicide qualities of neem and its use have been known in India for over 2,000 years, including to make insect repellents, soaps, cosmetics and contraceptives, and the neem patent was finally revoked.
• Biopiracy of Basmati Rice: On July 8, 1994, RiceTec, Inc., a Texas-based company, filed a genetic patent (No. 5663484) on basmati rice lines and grains in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) with twenty broad claims designed to create a complete rice monopoly patent which included planting, harvesting, collecting and even cooking. Though RiceTec claimed to have “invented” basmati rice, they accepted the fact that it had been derived from several rice accessions from India. RiceTec had claimed a patent for inventing novel basmati lines and grains. After protests, and a case in the Supreme Court of India, the USPTO struck down most sections of the basmati patent.
• Monsanto’s Biopiracy of Climate Resilience: Monsanto applied for blanket patents for “Methods of enhancing stress tolerance in plants and methods thereof.” (The title of the patent was later amended to “A method of producing a transgenic plant, with increasing heat tolerance, salt tolerance or drought tolerance.”) These traits have been evolved by our farmers over millennia, through applying their knowledge of breeding. On July 5, 2013, Hon. Justice Prabha Sridevi, Chair of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board of India, and Hon. Shri DPS Parmar, technical member, dismissed Monsanto’s appeal against the rejection of these patents that claimed Monsanto had invented all resilience.

Corporations like Monsanto have taken 1,500 patents on climate-resilient crops. The climate resiliency traits will become increasingly important in times of climate instability. Along coastal areas, farmers have evolved flood-tolerant and salt-tolerant varieties of rice, such as “Bhundi,” “Kalambank,” “Lunabakada,” “Sankarchin,” “Nalidhulia,” “Ravana,” “Seulapuni” and “Dhosarakhuda.” Crops such as millets have been evolved for drought tolerance and provide food security in water-scarce regions and during water-scarce years.

To end this new epidemic and save the sovereignty rights of our farmers and citizens, it is required that our legal systems recognize the rights of communities, including their collective and cumulative innovation in breeding diversity, and not merely the rights of corporations. It is the need of the hour to evolve categories of community intellectual rights (CIRs) related to biodiversity to balance and set limits along with boundary conditions for protection. The intellectual property rights as evolved are, in effect, a denial of the collective innovation of our people and the seed sovereignty or seed rights of our farmers …

… Seed saving is the foundation of Swaraj in our times. Seed saving is vital to our ability to address hunger and malnutrition. Seed saving is vital to bring back taste, nutrition and quality in our food. And without conservation and evolution of the biodiversity of our seeds, we will not be able to adapt to climate change.

Life forms, plants and seeds are all evolving, self-organized, sovereign beings. They have intrinsic worth, value and standing. Owning life by claiming it to be a corporate invention is ethically and legally wrong. Patents on seeds are legally wrong because seeds are not an invention. Patents on seeds are ethically wrong because seeds are life forms; they are our kin members of our earth family.

To join Vandana Shiva and democratic, concerned citizens of India and the U.S. in signing an open letter to Prime Minister Modi and President Obama, visit www.fairworldproject.org/sf.

To view the letter in its entirety and sign on, go to
https://fairworldproject.org/?p=6390

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Former EPA Senior Scientist’s New Article Sets Record Straight

Michael Specter’s articles in the New Yorker bashing Vandana Shiva and the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods (“Seeds of Doubt” and “The Problem with GMO Labels,” 8/25/14) are the latest high-profile pro-GMO articles that fail to engage with the fundamental critique of GE food crops in U.S. soil today — rather than reduce pesticide inputs, GMOs are in fact causing them to skyrocket in both amount and toxicity.

Setting the record straight, Dr. Ramon J. Seidler, Ph.D., former Senior Scientist, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has recently published a well-researched article documenting the devastating facts, “Pesticide Use on Genetically Engineered Crops,” in Environmental Working Group’s online publication AgMag. Dr. Seidler’s article cites and links to recent scientific literature and media reports, and it should be required reading for all journalists covering GMOs, as well as for all citizens in general, in order to understand why their right to know if food is genetically engineered is so important. The short discussion below summarizes the major points of his five-page article.

Over 99% of GMO acreage is engineered by chemical companies to tolerate heavy herbicide (glyphosate) use and/or to produce insecticide (Bt) in every cell of every plant over the entire growing season. The result is massive selection pressure that has rapidly created pest resistance — the opposite of integrated pest management where judicious amounts of chemical controls are applied only as necessary. Predictably, just like the overuse of antibiotics in confined factory farms has created resistant “supergerms” leading to animals being overdosed with ever more powerful antibiotics, we now have huge swaths of the country infested with “superweeds” and “superbugs” resistant to glyphosate and Bt, meaning greater volumes of even more toxic pesticides are being applied today.

For example, the use of systemic insecticides, which coat GMO corn and soy seeds and are incorporated and expressed inside the entire plant, has skyrocketed in the last ten years. This includes the use of neonicotinoids (neonics) which are extremely powerful neurotoxins that contaminate our food and water and destroy non-target pollinators and wildlife such as bees, butterflies and birds. In fact, two neonics in widespread use in the U.S. today are currently banned in the EU because of their suspected link to Colony Collapse Disorder in bees.

Mainstream pro-GMO media also fail to discuss the ever-increasing amount of older, much more toxic herbicides like 2,4-D and dicamba being sprayed, along with huge volumes of glyphosate, to deal with superweeds. Most importantly and egregiously, this biased reporting does not mention the imminent approval of the pesticide industry’s next-generation, herbicide-tolerant crops that are resistant not only to glyphosate, but also to high doses of 2,4-D and dicamba, which will lead to huge increases in the amount of these toxic chemicals being sprayed on our foods and farming communities.

The USDA and EPA are in the process of rubber-stamping these GMOs into our farming communities — and unlabeled onto our dinner plates, yet pro-GMO media consistently fail to discuss their imminent approval, while even touting the lower-toxicity profile of glyphosate. Such reporting gives a pass to the chemical pesticide industry that pours millions into lobbying government and media elites and defeating voter ballot initiatives to require labeling of GMO foods.

Farmworkers, and their children in particular, are vulnerable to direct pesticide exposure that contaminates their shoes and clothing — and thus their homes.

Hopefully, Dr. Seidler’s article will be widely read and disseminated, so that reporters can learn the facts and check their biases against industry-fed distortions. Citizens and consumers need to hear the fundamental concern that GMOs are doubling down on, not freeing us from, the pesticide treadmill that contaminates our food and water while lining the pockets of the chemical companies that make both the GMO crops and the pesticides used on them.

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By the French Fair Trade Platform

View the Updated Guide (2020 Edition)

Why are labels necessary to guarantee fair trade practices? How are the ten basic fair trade principles integrated into fair trade programs? With which requirements must traders and processors in northern countries comply? How is the compliance with fair trade requirements monitored by the certification schemes? Are the certification processes relevant enough to ensure that the basic fair trade principles have been fulfilled? What are the distinctive features of fair trade labels? What do we know about the impact of fair trade?

These are some of the questions addressed by the International Guide to Fair Trade Labels, the result of an international collaboration between four partners: French Fair Trade Platform, Fair World Project, FairNESS France and FairNESS UK. Published in early 2015, the guide is a useful tool for professional purchasers, public and local authorities, and consumers’ associations needing updated information on fair trade labels.

A growing need for updated information on fair trade labels

The guide project was initiated due to significant changes within the fair trade sector, including:

Evolution of the label landscape
New labels have emerged such as: SPP, for which only organized, small-scale producers are eligible, and which attempts to reclaim the values of the movement; and Fair Trade USA which attempts to open it up to unorganized producers and more plantations.  Others have merged: ECOCERT and Fair for Life. One label changed long-standing policies to open its certification scheme up to new actors: Fairtrade International with the launch of its Fairtrade Sourcing Programs.  Another strengthened its monitoring measures: WFTO.

Changes to the legislative landscape
Regulations on fair trade have recently evolved and now allow purchasers to demand a private sustainable development label as proof or evidence of compliance with their social and environmental requirements (European Directive on public procurement, January, 2014).

Proliferation of sustainable development labels
The proliferation of sustainability labels and the lack of visibility regarding their requirements have caused confusion among consumers and professionals, which has in turn increased the demand for concrete proof of fair trade impact.

A guide to better understand the guarantees of fair trade labels

The guide studies eight labels/guarantee systems claiming to be fair trade: ECOCERT Fair Trade, Fair for Life (IMO), Fairtrade International (FLO), Fair Trade USA, Forest Garden Products, Naturland Fair, Small Producer Symbol (SPP) and World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO).

Along with an analysis of the content of the various fair trade standards, the guide focuses on the monitoring measures implemented by these schemes to control compliance with their requirements.

In order to clarify the specifics of assorted fair trade label demands, the guide also compares them with other initiatives which are sometimes confused with fair trade labels, particularly because they certify the same kinds of commodities (such as sugar, cocoa and tea) and because brand marketing often intentionally associates them with fair trade. The comparison includes the following five sustainable development labels: 4C Association, Bonsucro, ProTerra Foundation, Rainforest Alliance and UTZ Certified.

Finally, the guide summarizes the main aspects of academic research regarding the identified impacts of the different fair trade labels and sustainable development labels.

To find out how to purchase The International Guide to Fair Trade Labels send an inquiry email to info@fairworldproject.org.

View the Updated Guide (2020 Edition)

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“We come to the U.S. to work because we can’t get a price for our product at home. There’s no alternative.”
– Rufino Dominguez, Director of the Oaxacan Institute for Attention to Migrants

When NAFTA was passed two decades ago, its boosters promised it would bring “first world” status for the Mexican people. Instead, it prompted a great migration north. In Oaxaca, for example, some towns have become depopulated, or now consist of communities with only the very old and very young, where most working-age people have left to work in the Global North.

Indeed U.S. trade and immigration policies are linked. They are part of a single system — not separate and independent. Trade negotiations and immigration policy were formally joined together by the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986.

IRCA set up a Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development to study the causes of immigration to the U.S. It found that the main motivation for coming to the U.S. was poverty. To slow or halt the flow of immigrants, it recommended that “U.S. economic policy should promote a system of open trade … [such as] the development of a U.S.-Mexico free trade area and its incorporation with Canada.”

The negotiations that then led to NAFTA started within months. NAFTA, however, did not produce rising incomes and employment in Mexico, and it did not decrease the flow of migrants. Instead, it became a source of pressure on Mexicans to migrate. The treaty forced corn grown by Mexican farmers without subsidies to compete in Mexico’s own market with corn grown by huge U.S. producers who had been subsidized by the U.S. government. In fact, agricultural exports to Mexico more than doubled during the first year of NAFTA.

According to Alejandro Ramírez, general director of the Confederation of Mexican Pork Producers, “We lost 4,000 pig farms. Each 100 animals produces five jobs, so we lost 20,000 farm jobs directly from imports. Counting the five indirect jobs dependent upon each direct job, we lost over 120,000 jobs in total.”  Once Mexican meat and corn producers were driven from the market by imports, the Mexican economy was left vulnerable to price changes dictated by U.S. agribusiness and U.S. policy. “When the U.S. modified its corn policy to encourage ethanol production,” he adds, “corn prices jumped 100% in one year.”

NAFTA also prohibited price supports, without which hundreds of thousands of small farmers found it impossible to sell corn or other farm products for more than it cost to produce them. Once free-market structures were in place, prohibiting government intervention to help them, those farmers paid the price. Campesinos from Veracruz, as well as those from Oaxaca and other major corn-producing states, joined the stream of workers headed north.  There, they became an important part of the workforce in U.S. slaughterhouses and other industries.

According to Garrett Brown, head of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Network, the average manufacturing wage in Mexico was 23% of that in the U.S. in 1975. By 2002, however, it was less than 12.5%. Brown says that, after NAFTA, real Mexican wages dropped by 22%, while worker productivity increased by 45%.

The rosy predictions of NAFTA’s boosters — that it would raise incomes and slow migration — proved false. The World Bank, in a 2005 study for the Mexican government, found that the extreme rural poverty rate of around 37% in 1992-1994, prior to NAFTA, jumped to about 52% in 1996-1998, after NAFTA took effect.

In the U.S. political debate, Veracruz’s uprooted coffee pickers and unemployed workers from Mexico City are called “immigrants,” because that debate does not recognize their existence before they had left Mexico. It is more accurate to call them “migrants,” and the process “migration,” since that takes into account both their communities of origin and those where they travel to find work.

Since NAFTA’s passage in 1993, the U.S. Congress has debated and passed several new trade agreements — with Peru, Jordan, Chile and Central America. At the same time, Congress has debated immigration policy as though those trade agreements bore no relationship to the waves of displaced people migrating to the U.S. looking for work. Meanwhile, heightened anti-immigrant hysteria has increasingly demonized those migrants, leading to measures that deny them jobs, rights, and any equality with the people living in the communities around them.

To resolve any of these dilemmas, from adopting rational and humane immigration policies to reducing fear and hostility toward migrants, the starting point must be an examination of the way U.S. policies have produced migration — and criminalized migrants. But “displacement” is unfortunately an unmentionable word in the Washington discourse.

Not one immigration proposal by Congress in the quarter century since IRCA was passed has tried to come to grips with the policies that uprooted miners, teachers, tree planters, farmers and other workers. In fact, while debating bills to criminalize undocumented migrants and set up huge guest worker programs, four new trade agreements were introduced, each of which has caused even more displacement and migration.

Note: The ideas herein were developed from David Bacon’s book, The Right to Stay Home: How U.S. Policy Drives Mexican Migration (Boston: Beacon Press, 2013).

The post Policy Reform Corner: Globalization, NAFTA and Migration from Mexico appeared first on Fair World Project.

There are many problems plaguing the modern food system. With its reliance on chemical pesticides, practices leading to soil exhaustion, and the rampant exploitation of workers (particularly migrant workers), the U.S. industrial food system must be transformed into something more just, humane and sustainable. Dominated by the principle of private profit, and supported by all the coercive mechanisms of big capital, industrial agriculture is fundamentally organized around the commodification and exploitation of both land and people. In such situations, it is often the people who are working directly at the point of production who are in a position to wage truly transformative struggles right at the heart of the problem. The labor dispute at Sakuma Brothers berry farm in Burlington, WA shows just how powerful workers can be in driving movements for a fair and equitable economy.

The independent farmworker union Familias Unidas Por La Justicia (FUJ) formed out of a series of six strikes which began in July of 2013 at Sakuma Brothers, the largest berry farm in Washington’s Whatcom and Skagit counties, with over 1,500 acres of land, millions of dollars in annual revenue and customers like Häagen-Dazs and Driscoll’s. Every year, they hire hundreds of indigenous Triqui and Mixteco farmworkers from Oaxaca to pick their berries. For decades, the farmworkers have had to tolerate a wide range of abuses, including systematic wage theft (particularly from minors and women), racist and sexist abuse from supervisors, substandard housing, and continuous retaliation for their efforts to improve their working conditions.

Carmen Juarez Ventura, one of the farmworkers at Sakuma Brothers, described life on the farm in an interview with sociologist Seth Holmes: “One gains nothing here, nothing to survive. Besides that, I have a daughter here with me, and I don’t make anything to give her. Working and working. Nothing. … Sometimes [the checkers] steal pounds. Sometimes rotten berries make it into the bucket. ‘Eat that one!’ they say, throwing it into your face. … You don’t make enough even to eat. I have two children, and it is very ugly here, very ugly work in the field. That’s how it is.”

The first strike began when Sakuma Brothers fired farmworker Federico Lopez after he asked for a higher piece rate in July of 2013. “He had come all the way from California, so far away, and they wanted to fire him. The people then decided to support him,” explained Felimon Piñeda, who has been vice president of the union since the workers elected him in 2013. “They elected ten people to take the message … that if Federico was fired, then they had to fire all of us.” The company declined to fire them all. Felimon continued, “That’s when we started to organize our people.” The workers went on strike and issued a list of demands, including a collaborative piece rate-setting process involving workers and management, lunch and rest breaks per the law, overtime pay, an end to practices which violated federal and state laws against harassment, and respect for Triqui and Mixteco farmworkers (who were routinely called racist slurs and treated with disrespect), among other demands.

Initially, Sakuma Brothers negotiated an agreement which included a new piece rate-setting process, the reinstatement of Federico Lopez and the removal of a particularly abusive supervisor. However, after making this agreement, the company broke it by refusing to pay the new piece rate. The workers went back on strike and at that point called for a boycott of Sakuma Brothers products until the company resumed negotiations and signed a union contract with FUJ.

Since then, Sakuma Brothers has refused to meet with the union. During 2013, the farm used H-2A guest workers to break a strike, and they sent security guards to the fields and labor camps where the workers live, rather than meet with them. (A judge later ruled that sending guards to the workers’ homes violated state laws protecting their rights to organize.) In 2014, the farm applied for 463 guest workers under the H-2A program. They found ways to avoid hiring union members and local workers, even though the H-2A program is available only to employers who are experiencing a shortage of local labor, and it was clear there was a local workforce available. There is nothing in the H-2A program which allows an employer to use it simply to avoid hiring union workers, so the workers were able to alert the Department of Labor that Sakuma Brothers was deliberately using the program to displace the union, and the company’s application was ultimately declined.

The labor dispute and boycott continued through the entire 2014 growing season. While refusing to negotiate, Sakuma Brothers has spent untold thousands of dollars on PR firms and labor consultants to undermine the union. But the workers have received broad support; students and communities throughout Washington have organized committees to promote the boycott and have mobilized themselves to support FUJ as needed. Stores across the country have pulled the farm’s berries off the shelves — even the Häagen-Dazs store in Seattle pulled their strawberry ice cream, made with Sakuma Brothers berries.

The Washington State Central Labor Council has recognized FUJ as a union. In court, the farmworkers have won multiple victories over issues of workers’ rights, housing and hiring practices; they have won hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages; and they have set many important legal precedents for future farmworker movements in Washington state. The efforts of FUJ to gain a contract have made tremendous strides in a very short period of time, but Sakuma Brothers continues to refuse negotiations and to retaliate against workers. The boycott remains in effect, and there is still much work to do before the company will negotiate a contract. Recently, they announced their intent to apply for H-2A guest workers in 2015, once again trying to abuse a government program to displace the union, rather than negotiating directly with organized domestic workers. So, FUJ’s struggle continues.

The principles of fair trade include fair prices and wages, workplace non-discrimination, gender equity, freedom of association, safe working conditions, reasonable work hours, environmental sustainability and transparency. The farmworkers of FUJ are organizing to bring exactly these principles to life in the U.S. food system, and they need all the support they can get. Movements such as this one have been incredibly successful in the past — including the Delano Grape strike and boycott under Cesar Chavez and the Chateau St. Michelle boycott, to name only two — but they have always needed the help of consumers to convince farmers to negotiate. “The most important way to provide support is to respect the boycott by not buying Sakuma Brothers or any product you know is made with their produce,” said Andrew Eckels, a student and activist who has been supporting the boycott. He added, “If there is already a boycott committee in your city, get in touch with them and ask about the best ways to get involved. If there is no committee in your city, then start one! Or at least organize pickets.”

Another important way to help is by donating money. FUJ’s struggle is a full union campaign embracing many fronts, and there are numerous expenses involved. The best way to contribute is by visiting their Web site (http://www.boycottsakumaberries.com/donate) or their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/FamiliasUnidas).

The post The Struggle for Fairness At Sakuma Brothers appeared first on Fair World Project.

In his article “Fairness for Farmworkers and Farm Animals” in Issue 8 of For A Better World, Paul Shapiro, Vice President of Farm Animal Protection for the Humane Society of the United States, recalled Upton Sinclair’s century-old, best-selling novel, The Jungle. Shapiro noted how the book, which he described as “reporting on life for immigrant workers in Chicago’s harrowing meat-packing industry,” highlighted the connections between human and animal abuse and united communities around labor and animal issues. He went on to explain that “over a century later, slaughter plant work is still among America’s most dangerous jobs, and farm animals still suffer in ways no person with a sound mind could condone.”

I read another reference to Sinclair’s book recently in an editorial for CNN by journalist Will Potter,¹ who remarked “If The Jungle were published today, Sinclair would probably release photos from his undercover investigation of Chicago meat-packing plants on Flickr and upload video to YouTube. His work would be shared thousands of times on Facebook by outraged consumers. And all of this could land him in court, and even in prison.”

Potter was referring to the threat of ag-gag laws. “Ag-gag” is a term coined to describe a variety of existing and proposed laws that seek to “gag” or prevent whistleblowers from exposing abuses and crimes within the animal agriculture industry. Although three similar laws, more broad in scope than simply recording, were passed in Kansas, Montana and North Dakota as early as 1990 and 1991, since 2011 a variety of ag-gag bills have been introduced around the country in an attempt to censor whistleblowing by investigators, journalists and advocacy organizations who seek to expose animal welfare or labor abuses in factory farms and slaughterhouses.

The meat and dairy industries have long tried – and often succeeded – in operating without transparency and leaving consumers in the dark. These industries have pressed lawmakers for years to inflict severe penalties on anyone that may threaten profit motives by exposing their exploitation.
In the face of growing pressure from the meat and dairy industries on legislators to pass ag-gag laws, investigations by animal advocacy organizations, such as the Humane Society of the United States, Mercy for Animals and Compassion Over Killing, have exposed shocking animal cruelty and consumer health dangers in the food industry that would have otherwise gone unreported.

There have been dozens of these undercover employment-based investigations of the meat, dairy and egg industries by animal protection groups over the past fifteen years. These investigations have led to a felony conviction for egregious cruelty to animals,² the country’s largest meat recall ordered by the USDA in 2008,³ a civil settlement of $497 million by a California slaughterhouse,⁴ and international media exposure to the plight of animals and workers on factory farms.

The investigations have also led to improved conditions for farm animals, laws against a range of animal confinement systems in nine states, and corporate farm animal welfare policies from most of the country’s largest fast-food restaurants, grocery chains and meat companies, including McDonald’s, Burger King, Smithfield Foods and Hormel.

In 2011, the meat industry responded – not by improving conditions for farm animals, but by proposing ag-gag laws in four states to prohibit investigations into abuses and crimes within the animal agriculture industry. The first law of its kind passed that year in Iowa. In 2012, pro-factory farm legislators enacted three such laws in Missouri, Utah and South Carolina. In 2013, fifteen anti-whistleblower bills were introduced in eleven states (Arkansas, California, Indiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wyoming, and Vermont). None passed. 2014 saw another six such bills proposed, with one passing in Idaho.

Many of these bills have their origins⁵ in model legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the conservative think tank that has been behind a variety of legislative campaigns, including “stand your ground” gun laws and laws mandating states to teach climate change denial in schools. In 2002, ALEC introduced model legislation, called the “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act,”⁶ which labels people who film animal operations as “terrorists” and criminalizes such actions. In 2004, ALEC began pushing the legislation, and many state “ag-gag” bills have since borrowed language from it.

Anti-whistleblower bills, when passed, effectively block anyone from exposing animal cruelty, food-safety issues, poor working conditions and more in factory farms. The bills do this by:

• Banning the taking of photos or video of a factory farm without permission;
• Criminalizing those seeking employment at a factory farm with the intent to investigate and report on the practices there; and
• Requiring those who witness animal abuse to report the incident within such a short time frame that it is nearly impossible to document any long-term or widespread patterns of abuse.

A wide variety of welfare, civil liberties, environmental, food safety and First Amendment organizations have publicly stated their opposition to ag-gag laws. Some of these groups include: American Civil Liberties Union, Animal Legal Defense Fund, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Amnesty International USA, Farm Sanctuary, Food and Water Watch, Food Chain Workers Alliance, Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association, International Labor Rights Forum, Organic Consumers Association, National Consumers League, and United Farm Workers, among many others.

Not only do ag-gag laws help to perpetuate animal abuse on industrial farms, they also threaten workers’ rights, consumer health and safety, and the freedom of journalists, employees and the public at large to share information about something as fundamental as our food supply.

While campaigning against the Indiana ag-gag bill, state AFL-CIO president Nancy Guyott said: “Documentation of working conditions in Indiana has been instrumental in improving the nation’s workplace safety laws, since Lewis Hine photographed children working the midnight shift in Indiana’s glass factories in the early 1900s. And that’s exactly what this bill seeks to prevent. The big businesses pushing for this bill seek to ensure that the public discussion of what ought to be cannot be informed by the truth of what is.”

Rather than criminalize undercover investigations in the meat and dairy industries, we should be celebrating them – such investigations were the impetus for many of the nation’s food safety laws. Public knowledge of the practices that Sinclair brought to light in The Jungle led to the passage of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. More recently, Michael Pollen’s exposé of the fast-food and meat industries galvanized a new movement around issues related to food safety and sustainability. Over time, increased public awareness has led to stronger food safety laws that help protect the public from “mad cow” disease, E. coli, Salmonella and more.

Ag-gag laws pose a grave threat to everyone, especially those of us who envision and work towards a more sustainable food system and a more just economy. Ag-gag laws are an attempt to keep consumers in the dark about what they are buying – and they do that by criminalizing anyone who seeks to understand or expose the truth, allowing the agriculture industry to maximize profits at the expense of animals, workers, food safety and the environment.

But there is hope … animal advocacy organizations continue to pursue investigations to uncover wrongdoing on factory farms, and the growing coalition of animal protection, labor, food safety and consumer advocates have succeeded in stopping a number of proposed ag-gag bills. As Will Potter emphasized on a recent speaking tour about the dangers of ag-gag laws, “The reason activists are a ‘threat’ [to the meat and dairy industries] isn’t that they’re breaking windows. It’s that they’re creating them.”

Learn More:

American Civil Liberties Union
www.aclu.org

Animal Legal Defense Fund
www.aldf.org

American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
www.aspca.org

Amnesty International USA
www.amnestyusa.org

Farm Sanctuary
www.farmsanctuary.org

Food and Water Watch
www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Food Chain Workers Alliance
www.foodchainworkers.org

Humane Society of the United States
www.humanesociety.org

Humane Society Veterinary
www.hsvma.org

International Labor Rights Forum
www.laborrights.org

Organic Consumers Association
www.organicconsumers.org

National Consumers League
www.nclnet.org

United Farm Workers
www.ufw.org

Footnotes:

1. Will Potter, “Exposing Animal Cruelty is Not a Crime,” CNN, June 26, 2014, <http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/26/opinion/potter-ag-gag-laws-animals/>
2. “Cruel Cuts: Illegal Slaughter Exposed in Los Angeles,” Mercy For Animals, <http://www.mercyforanimals.org/caslaughter/>
3. David Brown, “USDA Orders Largest Meat Recall in U.S. History,” The Washington Post, February 18, 2008, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/17/AR2008021701530.html>
4. Victoria Kim, “Chino Slaughterhouse to Pay $300,000 in Settlement,” Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2012, <http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/16/local/la-me-slaughterhouse-settlement-20121117>
5. Katie Valentine, “How ALEC Has Undermined Food Safety by Pushing ‘Ag-Gag’ Laws Across the Country,” ThinkProgress, March 19, 2013, <http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/19/1741691/alec-food-safety-ag-gag/>
6. “Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act (AETA),” ALEC Exposed (The Center for Media and Democracy), <http://alecexposed.org/w/images/f/f5/7K13-The_Animal_and_Ecological_Terrorism_Act_%28AETA%29_Exposed.pdf>

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Trade Aid has firmly established itself as the original and largest fair trade organization to operate in New Zealand. With New Zealand’s  population of only 4.3 million people, Trade Aid has had to evolve into a multi-category and multi-channel distributor in order to maintain consistent growth. Group annual sales now reach U.S. $15 million and continue to grow each year. The organization is comprised of thirty stores, packaged food wholesaling, green coffee brokering and, most recently, chocolate manufacturing.

Trade Aid was established in 1973 by Richard and Vi Cottrell, on their return from working with Tibetan refugees in India. In the early 1970s, New Zealand’s social justice movement was forming, and activists saw trading as a way to demonstrate new development theory. This new way of thinking about development was based on providing a means to earn money to people in developing countries and letting them decide what to do, rather than the accepted practice of imposing a donor “solution.”

The fair trade model that was evolving at this time, using trade as a vehicle for providing aid to those in need, provided a practical way to implement the theory. Inspired and motivated by this movement, Richard and Vi gathered a group together, forming a wholesale trading company owned by a non-profit incorporated society. Trade Aid’s journey had begun. As demanded by the various skills required to run the organization, it was an eclectic group, well described by one of the original directors as “on one side of the table, committed, respected, skilled city business people … on the other side, wide-eyed, idealistic, well-travelled revolutionaries, pumped full of liberation theology.”

“It was felt that those without land were poorer than those with land, therefore the focus would be on forming trading relationships with handcraft producers”

The wholesale operation grew rapidly with many “Third World” retail stores opening in towns and cities across New Zealand. The stores were completely independent from Trade Aid and each other, often with little knowledge of retail nor regard for financial outcomes. Within a short three years, a network of twenty stores had opened. The first flush of enthusiasm soon gave way to the practicality of maintaining and growing a business. These stores became known as “The Movement” and gradually began to function as a single entity, with stores operating under the Trade Aid name and with systems and financial controls in place.

Up until the early 2000s, the main focus was on handcrafts. The philosophy of Trade Aid has always been firmly on helping the “poorest of the poor.” It was felt that those without land were poorer than those with land, therefore the focus would be on forming trading relationships with handcraft producers. Handcrafts are a valuable proposition for economic development for a number of reasons. There is no, or low, capital cost required to set up; the work can be managed around other chores, especially important for women; the work can be done from home; and the work promotes solidarity and often maintains cultural and historical values. From a business perspective, though, trading primarily in handcrafts is difficult. It is a low-price, low-volume business, where making a profit is challenging, especially when you have retail stores in prime locations.

After thirty years of making very small surpluses, Trade Aid decided it needed to diversify into other categories that would meet its development criteria and  also bring much-needed profits to the business. The decision on with whom to form trading partnerships was determined first and foremost from a development perspective. Trade Aid has a unique structure where decisions on with whom to trade, and with whom not to trade, are made by a voluntary committee where the majority of members are non-staff and from a development background. By adopting this process, the company is able to maintain its mission to improve the lives of those with whom they trade without its own business needs determining the path followed.
In 2003, a decision was made to trade in green coffee beans, and eight tons (a half container) were purchased to wholesale to New Zealand roasters. At the time, it was seen as a huge risk, as there was only one customer who had expressed interest. Fortuitously, however, with risk comes reward. In a little under eight years, Trade Aid would be importing over 1,000 tons per year and supplying around 18% of the total New Zealand market for specialty coffee.

Trade Aid then decided that they needed to be able to offer double certification – fair trade and organic – and to offer various ways in which they could engage with the industry. This involved assorted options, from a basic wholesale service to full supply chain management. The move into the coffee industry was an outstanding success, providing another income stream with strong cash flow. At the same time, a mainly-organic packaged food range was launched, with sales expanding to supermarkets and organic stores.

Buoyed by the success with coffee, in 2013 a decision was made to move from importing fair trade chocolate from Europe to manufacturing chocolate locally. A chocolate factory in Sydney, Australia was purchased and moved to a newly-outfitted location in Christchurch, New Zealand in early 2014. Production began in September of 2014, and sales immediately rose by 300%.

The decision to become a manufacturer was not taken lightly. The business has always tried to push value down the supply chain, mainly through having some processing and all packaging done at the source. However, manufacturing chocolate requires a great deal of temperature control and reliable, low-cost power, which is not feasible in producer countries.

For us at Traid Aid, any new business venture is judged on the benefits it brings to the producer and whether or not it fits with the mission and charter of the organization. It must pass that hurdle before the business case is even considered. Traid Aid proves that marrying ethical production to smart business practices (cost and quality control), along with effective communication and the ethical treatment of consumers, can result in tremendous success.

To learn more about Trade Aid, visit www.tradeaid.org.nz

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