Dear MJR
Thanks for your interesting question.
´Does Fair Trade support local farmers?´ is a question supporters of Fair Trade will be familiar with.
Generally speaking I think most of the principles of Fair Trade, in particular being paid a fair price and long term trading relationships, are principles that the Fair Trade movement in the UK would champion for farmers and workers everywhere.
A domestic version of the Fairtrade label is something there could be support for in the Fair Trade movement. On the other hand, at last years ´Ethical Shopping´ conference there was discussion about logo burnout amongst consumers.
Currently commodities that can be certified Fair Trade are those grown mostly in developing countries and the labelling system is designed around those circumstances. As you probably know, Fair Trade producers are mostly small farmers often at the sharp end of price fluctuations, with little social security protection.
You mentioned Equal Exchange who are a very dynamic worker co-operative with a track record in working with and developing Fair Trade producers. The domestic fair trade campaign is on their US website and interestingly it mentions nut farmers in co-operatives.
From the Wales Co-operative Centre´s point of view, we help support and develop farmers in Wales who want to work in co-operatives to jointly market their products.
One example of this is Calon Wen, a dairy farmers co-operative who have become very successful and now sell their product in Waitrose. They are also trialing a new consumer standard for the Soil Association, which carries a label called ´Ethical Trade´. This means that everyone involved has labour conditions that conform to the ILO (International Labour Organisation) basecode - which is part of the cornerstone of ethical trading and fair trade also. Of course this would only apply to organic production.
The Wales Fair Trade Forum is also promoting the concept of Fair and Local (we have done presentations on this too to the hospitality industry) - as this naturally goes together for ethical consumers. They may work more closely with farmers organisations in the future.
I´m not sure what the Fairtrade Foundation´s offical view would be on domestic Fair Trade, but we could invite a representative to join the discussion, or do a special discussion on this in the future.
I´m sure others will want to carry on this debate so it would be interesting to hear your views here or on the forum. We will open the debate later this evening so please feel free to give your views. Thanks Elizabeth
