February 2012
6 posts
8 tags
Fair trade debate is welcome, but let’s get the...
by Barbara Crowther, Director of Policy and Communications, Fairtrade Foundation
To launch the start of Fairtrade Fortnight, BBC breakfast interviewed Dalibor Rohac of the Legatum Institute who made a number of claims about why he thinks fair trade does not work. Here’s what he claimed, and what I would have said, if I’d had the chance!
“Fairtrade locks poor people into agriculture, producing...
10 tags
Should Fairtrade be business-like or charity-like?
By Barbara Crowther, Communications Director, Fairtrade Foundation
The limits of language are the limits of your world, according to Wittgenstein. So I bristled when a colleague commented to me this week over a cup of (Fairtrade) coffee that he’s pleased the Fairtrade Foundation, a charity, is becoming more ‘business-like’. What he actually meant was ‘efficient’. So should...
6 tags
Fairtrade Fortnight begins!
by Harriet Lamb, Executive Director, Fairtrade Foundation
As we hit Fairtrade Fortnight (27 Feb- 11 March), it seems everyone is talking and tweeting about responsible business. And quite right too. People are angry with irresponsible capitalism, they are feeling the pinch, whilst the farmers and workers in developing countries are always hit first and worst.
For responsible capitalism is not...
8 tags
Alexa Chung loves Fairtrade cotton at LFW
By Harriet Lamb, Executive Director, Fairtrade Foundation
It’s vital in life to know your limits. What you’re good at, and what really is just not you. Well I didn’t become a fashion model for very good sound reasons.
So imagine my panic, when the dynamic and outrageously beautiful Safia Minney, who runs People Tree, phones me up to ask what I want to wear for her special evening. I am on...
7 tags
Harriet Lamb visits banana farmers in the Windward...
By Harriet Lamb, Executive Director, Fairtrade Foundation
No-one could avoid smirking when I said I was going to the sunny Caribbean island of St Lucia on work. Yeah, yeah….. But what can a girl do, when some of our most important producer partners happen to be the banana farmers of the Windward Islands which includes St Lucia as well as St Vincent and Dominica.
It’s a tough assignment. But,...
5 tags
A tale of two Fairtrade Towns
By Harriet Lamb, Executive Director, Fairtrade Foundation
The vibrant network of campaigners for Fairtrade spreads across the UK, creating common ground for otherwise very different types of communities.
This weekend, I popped down to visit my mother in the buzzing village of Milverton, snug in the rolling Somerset hills and to speak with the local society about Fairtrade.
They are already...