When free trade agreements between China and Thailand gave China the edge in the garlic market – effectively breaking the back of the Thai garlic industry – the Alternative Agriculture Network of Thailand decided to find out how China was producing the spicy cloves so cheaply, its coordinator, Ubon Yuwa, said. A delegation of Thai garlic farmers went to the Chinese garlic fields and found field workers harvesting from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. with one daily meal as their payment.
Yuwa, who spoke Thai through a translator at a fair trade symposium at the University on Thusday, said the plight of the Thai and Chinese garlic workers exemplifies how “free trade agreements are causing countries to kill each other.”
“Don’t think in terms of rich or poor,” he said. “Think in terms of exploited and unexploited.”
Yuwa and other activists argued in favor of Fair Trade, a certification practice that guarantees farmers will receive a better, fair wage for their produce.
When workers are paid better, they work harder and the company receives a higher quality product, said Edouard Rollet, co-founder of Alter-Eco, a large Fair Trade food retailer in France.
Rollet said Fair Trade companies keep finances transparent, buy seeds and machinery, improve infrastructure of the country, and offer a long-term commitment to the farmers.
The goal of Fair Trade, he said, is to provide assistance without interfering to create stronger and more autonomous people. Fair Trade remains inexpensive because it cuts out middlemen from the transactions so farmers are dealing directly with companies, he said.
Priya Haji discussed the U.S. market demand for ethically-produced goods and her business World of Good, which she said encourages a more humanitarian, educated consumer. Haji, who has an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, aims to use her company to empower women in the male-dominated farming profession, heliping them survive through craft work. She was amazed by the resourcefulness of the women, making bags from zippers and weaving using rolled strips of newspaper.
She said the upsurge in populatiry of organic products can be a model for Fair Trade products. After standards are enforced, creative competition will begin just as it did for organic products.
As part of the consumer culture, she said, Americans need to be setting an example.