Fairtrade Fortnight 21st February to 6th March 2022
For two weeks each year at the end of February and start of March, thousands of individuals, companies and groups across the UK come together to share the stories of the people who grow our food and drinks, mine our gold and who grow the cotton in our clothes, people who are often exploited and underpaid.
Fairtrade Fortnight will this year be a show of solidarity with communities overseas on the frontline of the climate crisis. November’s COP26 summit didn’t deliver the change needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, nor did it secure finance to directly support farmers and workers on the frontline, but the Fairtrade Foundation believes there is hope if we all act together.
Fairtrade Fortnight is an opportunity for individuals, communities, and businesses around country to stand with farmers in low-income countries such as Honduras and Uganda who are affected daily by climate change. Together, by keeping the pressure on government and businesses, we can all play a role in ensuring farmers can benefit from fairer prices, fairer trading practices and the resources needed for tackling the climate emergency. The climate crisis is the biggest threat to the livelihoods of millions of small-scale farmers and agricultural workers in low-income countries worldwide. Without a fairer income, they are unable to invest in the types of mitigation and adaptation techniques needed to protect the environment, and their businesses. consumers and businesses.
Climate change, and the ability of farmers to grow their produce, is also threatening the survival and sustainability of supply chains behind some of the UK’s best-loved imports, such as coffee, cocoa and bananas. Mr Kouamé N’dri Benjamin-Francklin, a cocoa farmer from Côte D’Ivoire and Fairtrade Africa vice-chair board member, says financial support is a vital element of ensuring that farmers in low-income nations have the tools they need to tackle the increasingly destructive impacts of the climate crisis: ‘If we carry on planting when we have always done before, when there is no rain and it is so hot, whatever we try to grow is destroyed. Then there is nothing to harvest. That has been happening now for years and production has massively decreased. Because of that, our incomes have massively decreased.’ Mr Kouamé, who attended COP26 as part of Fairtrade’s farmer delegation, added: ‘What is more, the little that we can sell isn’t paid at the price it should be paid. For example, take cocoa. Cocoa farmers only earn 3% of the price of a chocolate bar. Being a farmer shouldn’t be a route to poverty.’
Each year, thousands of schools, organisations and communities nationwide play a key role in promoting Fairtrade Fortnight through their own campaigns, events and materials, in order to help raise awareness of the link between trade and poverty. The Fairtrade Foundation hopes people will engage with Fairtrade Fortnight once again this year, as part of their ongoing efforts to protect people and planet. As valued members of the Fairtrade movement, thousands of Fairtrade towns, villages, schools and churches are proud to use Fairtrade products, including tea, coffee, sugar and biscuits, and to supporting Fairtrade as a key solution for making trade fairer for those in lower-income countries.
To find out more visit: fairtrade.org.uk/fortnight and: traidcraftexchange.org
We use Fairtrade tea, coffee and sugar at Emmanuel and from time to time we have had a Fairtrade stall during Fairtrade Fortnight. Sadly our local supplier is no longer trading but we are still sourcing Fairtrade products on-line and it would be good to work towards Fairtrade Church status when we move into the new building. In the meantime, please look for the Fairtrade logo when you are shopping and maybe explore some of the ethical shopping sites.