Feature

Fair, and Sustainable, Trade

How are NGOs and the private sector seeking to incorporate the progressive and justice-focused principles from Fair Trade into more mainstream commercial activities? How can this be done in ways that are environmentally sustainable, but also profitable?

CRS joined Sustainable Food Laboratory, World Wildlife Fund, and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters at an Earth Day event at Villanova University last week to discuss this question.

Fair Trade is a highly successful business model that helps the poorest farmers and has been strongly supported by the Church over the past 30 years. CRS is a strong advocate of the Fair Trade approach and has a number of successful coffee projects in Latin America. However, although Fair Trade is growing, it still only represents 3-4% of the sales of coffee worldwide.

Therefore businesses such as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) are working with NGOs such as CRS to find ways of expanding the benefits of trading relationships for farmers. The aim is to provide long-term support to farming communities and help them build resilient production systems that are flexible enough to operate in dynamic, formal markets. This is a major challenge, and often companies “green wash”, or make false claims about their environmental and social credentials.

To avoid this type of outcome CRS and GMCR, through a partnership with CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture), are undertaking a series of studies and projects (read about the CUP project in Guatemala on sharepoint) , to evaluate and respond to key issues such as food security and the effects of climate change on coffee production areas. CRS and GMCR also are looking at how to help farmers ensure coffee quality while increasing productivity . These projects are providing incentives for farmers to upgrade their production systems, and for companies to support better market and quality information systems. The hope of these investments is that farmers can produce more quality coffee using sustainable production systems, and buyers can build durable relationships with producers based on numeric evidence and demonstrated impact.

CRS is also working with the Sustainable Food Laboratory and agencies such as Rainforest Alliance . These organizations are generating flexible certification schemes that are attracting investment from major cocoa and coffee buyers, and it is hoped that this will improve the long term sustainability of basic production systems for smallholders.

The reason for this increased interest in sustainability is that the private sector is realizing that their current business models are unlikely to succeed with conventional approaches in the face of rapidly increasing population growth and climate change. As NGOs we know that we can influence marketing ideas, but will not change mainstream trading relationships unless we work alongside like-minded private companies, communities and governments and uplift proven principles of economic justice.

These players need to engage in new business models that will take us beyond fair trade.

Read more about current CRS Fair Trade initiatives in the United States at www.crsfairtrade.org. To learn about CRS country-specific coffee projects, visit http://coffeelands.crs.org.

Back to top

Other stories

From the Regions

GLOBAL

CRS conducted a Disaster Risk Reduction/ Climate Change Adaptation workshop in Baltimore April 12-16. Teams will be creating guidance for country programs as they implement climate change adaptation and mitigation programs.  A complete report for CRS staff, as well as all workshop presentations, are on sharepoint, HERE.

Contact: Amy Hilleboe ahillebo@crs.org

In order to improve our M&E systems within CRS agriculture, the Ag/Env team is beginning a process of defining and standardizing key indicators for common agriculture and environment programs; these will include common indicators for agroenterprise development, production and productivity, and IWRM. This process is called Globally-Accepted Indicators (GAIN); click HERE to read about it on sharepoint .  The process will include defining a minimum data set (MDS) of basic farmer group and profitability information, as well as indicators to measure skill set adoption.  Representatives from regional and program offices will be contributing to - and driving forward - this process.

Contact: Dina Brick dbrick@crs.org

CARO

Community Forestry to Fight Poverty (FCCP) project is an initiative to alleviate extreme poverty in the Diocese of Batouri of the East Province of Cameroon. Since February 2006, through a project jointly funded by the Highly Indebted Poor Country Mechanism (HIPC) and CRS, CRS/CM has provided technical assistance to forest communities to take advantage of their country’s vast natural resources in the Eastern Province through community forestry projects. The project empowers citizens to improve their quality of life by managing and harvesting their own plots of forest, selling valuable forest products, and contributing to the economic development of their communities . It is a 5-year project with the CODASC (Comite Diocesain d’Actions Socio-Caritatives) of the Diocese of Batouri as the main implementing partner.

Beneficiaries of the project include:
■ 25 communities
■ 40 villages
■ 40,000 direct beneficiaries
■ 200,000 indirect beneficiaries (inhabitants of the Diocese of Batouri)

Impact of the Project
In June 2008, the project achieved significant progress in its goal by creating community-owned and managed plots of forest. After advocating to the Ministry of Forestry and Fauna, agreements were signed that officially establish plots of forest in the Diocese of Batouri as reservations owned by the communities.

Progress is demonstrated in the fact that 16 of the 25 agreements have already been signed. 13 communities have started logging and trade wood in the coming days and others are waiting their logging and trade documents to be signed by the Ministry in charge of Forest.

Contact:  Nyapeye Aurelie anyapeye@cm.caro.crs.org

LACRO

The Agriculture for Basic Needs Project (known as “A4N”) is implementing an innovative Monitoring and Evaluation approach, called “Field visits to Analyze Project Advancement” (JAAP). The approach involves regional teams making monthly project visits and conducting follow-up stakeholder meetings to promote reflective analysis of program gains and allow for corrective adjustments and decisions to better achieve targets. In particular, JAAP will look at the adoption of farmer skill sets, including marketing, savings-led finance, group management, sustainable production, and innovation.

Contact: Jose Angel Cruz jcruz@crs.org.sv

EARO

CRS is beginning a new series of webinars about information and communications technology for development (ICT4D), on the first Tuesdays of the month.  The first will discuss collecting data using computer-based forms and an online database, by Peter Mureithi of the Great Lakes Cassava Initiative.  Join the discussion on TUESDAY, MAY 4TH, 9 a.m. EDT  by going to http://ecom.catholicrelief.org/ict4d/ 

Norah Kaaya of CRS/Tanzania will present the second webinar on Tuesday, June 1st, on using ICT in OVC programming.

Contact: Dina Brick dbrick@crs.org
 

Back to top

LRP: an alternative to traditional food aid?

Local and Regional Purchase (LRP) is gaining attention within the donor community. USDA is offering $50m over 2 years for development programs, and USAID has just allocated $200m for emergency LRP programs. LRP involves purchasing food commodities locally or within a region for distribution in specified food-deficit recipient countries.

World Food Program has been conducting LRP for many years through a program called Purchase for Progress (P4P)  P4P's aim is to enable smallholder farmers to produce food commodities for WFP programs.

CRS is working to engage new donors and expand our LRP work by implementing pilot programs.  CRS will also use this opportunity to determine the factors and conditions under which LRP is more effective - and will have more impact on the poor at scale - than traditional transoceanic shipments.  For example, it is likely that, in certain contexts, LRP will stimulate smallholder production and market integration, and reduce intermediary trader costs.  However, small purchases rather than large tenders in source markets may lead to increased prices.  CRS is committed to researching the impacts of LRP on both source and recipient markets.

Additional resources on LRP are available on sharepoint by clicking HERE.

Contact: Frank Orzechowski ofrancis@crs.org or Shaun Ferris sferris@crs.org

Back to top

Market Watch

Dow Jones Industrial Average - 29 April 2010.  UP. 11,192.

Maize - April 2010.  UP. 360.4 (¢/56lb bushel – CBOT futures, May 2010) Up from 355.2 last AgUpdate

Coffee - 29 April 2010.  DOWN . $1283. Robusta Futures May 2010. Down from $1352 last AgUpdate

Gold - 28 April 2010.  UP.  $1171. Up from $1104.44/oz last AgUpdate

Back to top