Fair Trade Goes Local

With climate change and the current health crisis, alarm bells are starting to ring: the way we have organised the globalisation of the market with international just-in-time value chains makes us extremely vulnerable and is putting more and more pressure on ecosystems. Not to mention the social consequences, like growing inequality.

It is time then to take a different approach to our trade relations. We urgently need to re-localise some of the economic activity in vital sectors like healthcare and the food industry, in order to increase our autonomy and resilience. We need to de-specialise our areas and define a new ‘food sovereignty’ by collectively deciding how we want to produce and bring our food to market.(1) Fair trade can contribute to this.

Fair trade goes local

Fair trade is a movement that is constantly looking for cohesion, with various different dynamics at play. One of these is an important one: fair trade has long been confined to the North-South solidarity trade, but has since opened up to local trade. First in southern countries like Mexico, India, South Africa, Kenya and Ecuador. Brazil has even gone so far as to introduce legislation that heads in that direction. Then in European countries to obtain a sustainable agricultural model to strengthen social links. In Belgium, various initiatives were launched: the label ‘Prix juste producteur’, Fairbel milk and the ‘Biogarantie Belgium’ label that has adopted certain fair trade criteria. More traditional fair trade organisations like Miel Maya honey, Oxfam, Ethiquable and others have also integrated certain players and local products to give a truly universal dimension to the concept and practices of fair trade.

A variety of approaches

The ‘classic’ South-North fair trade had already shown its multiplicity, with, for example, organisations working only with marginalised producers organised in cooperatives and others allowing contract farming or certifying large plantations. The same is true of local Belgian and European fair trade. While all organisations are committed to remunerating producers fairly, and while almost all work with organised producers, there are differences in terms of the agricultural model (agro-ecological or not), the attention paid to the physical traceability of products, the size of farms, etc.

Since its creation, more than 70 years ago, fair trade has undergone constant evolution, always in search of greater relevance. Today it has reached a universal dimension, with practices adapted to different local contexts. Let's count on the fact that the international movement or the legislator will manage to maintain a certain unity of approach.  

Read more about ‘Local fair trade in Belgium and Europe’ in the study of the Trade for Development Centre (Enabel): https://www.tdc-enabel.be/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Local-Fair-Trade-in-Belgium-and-Europe.pdf

In French: https://usercontent.one/wp/www.tdc-enabel.be/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Le-commerce-equitable-belge-et-europeen.pdf?media=1639485290

TDC published a non-exhaustive list of Belgian and European initiatives that fall under the category of ‘local fair trade’. The document also presents a synoptic table of criteria used for local Fair Trade, a typology of organisations, a cross-sectional analysis of the similarities and differences in production processes, pricing etc., and provides a few points of attention like the multiplication of labels, the coexistence of ‘Southern’ and ‘Northern’ products…

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