After three years of collaboration, the French Fair Trade Platform (PFCE) and the French Network of Citizen-led Local Initiatives (INPACT National) in association with the country's National Organic Agriculture Federation (FNAB) launched the "Local Fair Trade" Charter in June 2014.
Convinced of the relevance and effectiveness of the tools put in place by traditional fair trade actors to strengthen family farming in the countries of the South, the backers of this project set out to adapt fair trade tools to the French situation and context.
This Charter consists of 14 basic principles (see inset) to develop fair trade relations at the service of smallholder and agroecological agriculture. It aims to defend and promote innovative agriculture that respects nature and humankind while relying on agroecologcial farming practices. Through sustainable, economic and self-supporting agricultural practices producer organisations of a human and democratic size and production based on local resources and characteristics the signers of the Charter want to support types of agriculture that comprehensively contribute to the sustainable and citizen-led development of land.
The "Local Fair Trade" Charter aims to bring together initiatives that already exist or are being developed in France (the "consumer–producer solidarity" range of Biocoop, the "social and organic" label of the Bio-Partenaire association, the "local farmers" range of Ethiquable, the Ecocert Solidaire label, etc.) by offering both visibility and coherence to them.
The 14 principles of the Charter
Fair and responsible trade relations
- Transparent and profitable prices
- A long-term business partnership
- A non-exclusive relation which guarantees producer autonomy
- A shared development project
- An environment-friendly value chain
- Working conditions that respect human dignity
Promotion of sustainable citizen-led agriculture
- Local citizen-led agriculture
- Sustainable, self-supporting and transparent agricultural practices based on organic and/or agroecologic farm production methods
- A democratic organisation of producers
- Production based on local resources and characteristics
Changing business practices
- Transparency and communication with consumers
- Awareness-raising and education of consumer
- Advocacy with political and economic decision makers
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