Beyond 1,000 Fair Trade Towns

By Adam Gardner, Campaigns Officer, Fairtrade Foundation

Ten years ago this week, the small market town of Garstang, Lancashire became the first Fairtrade Town in the world. Bruce Crowther, the campaign founder, said ‘if it can happen in Garstang it can happen anywhere,’ although few would have predicted that in 2011 there would be over 1,000 across 24 countries.

Malmo, the first Fairtrade City in Sweden, was a fitting setting for the fifth International Fairtrade Towns Conference last weekend and a dozen UK delegates joined over 200 others from Fairtrade Towns from across the globe, and producer representatives from Ghana and Kenya.

Activists shared ideas and challenges from their own campaigns in workshops. From incorporating Fairtrade into public procurement, to engaging schools and universities in Fairtrade campaigning, and maintaining enthusiasm in established campaigns, everyone had something to share and we picked up plenty of ideas to bring back to the UK.

The conference also prepared this statement, for the European Parliament and the Rio +20 UN conference on sustainable development.

Speakers including MPs, Fairtrade producers and activists added different insights to the role of Fairtrade Towns, as a people’s movement for change.

Lari Pitka-Kangas, Deputy Mayor of Malmo (and Chair of the Fairtrade City Steering Group) typified the kind of political leadership that is a strength of Swedish Fairtrade Towns, and Malmo-based Fredrik Gertten, director of the film Bananas! added an artistic dimension. He highlighted the power of storytelling in bringing about social change, through his own experience standing up to enormous corporate power.

Walter Alifo, a head teacher from the cocoa farming community of New Korofidua, Ghana, also captured the imagination of the conference by presenting their own Fair Trade Town campaign – the first in Africa.

Delegates from Brazil – where the FAIRTRADE Mark is soon to be launched – were also in attendance to find out how the Fair Trade Towns model could be adapted to bring producers and consumers closer through Fairtrade in their fledgling Fairtrade market.

Garstang celebrates ten years as a Fairtrade Town by opening an international Fairtrade visitor centre this week. From humble yet determined beginnings, the future of Fair Trade Towns is truly international, and who knows what this grassroots movement of communities coming together to take action for fairer trade will achieve in another ten years.

You can watch the conference on video here

Find out more about the world of Fair Trade Towns at www.fairtradetowns.org