FAIR TRADE QUOTES

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* ...Any definition of a culture of peace must address the problem of achieving justice for communities and individuals who do not have the means to compete or cope without structured assistance and compassionate help.
-- Mahnaz Afkhami

The Fair Trade movement is growing as people realize that they can help alleviate poverty and protect the environment by choosing Fair Trade products.
-- Robert Alan

"Fair Trade supports some of the most bio-diverse farming systems in the world. When you visit a Fair Trade coffee grower's fields, with the forest canopy overhead and the sound of migratory songbirds in the air, it feels like you're standing in the rainforest."
-- Professor Miguel Altieri, Leading expert and author on agroecology

NAFTA and GATT have about as much to do with free trade as the Patriot Act has to do with liberty.
-- Michael Badnarik, Libertarian Presidential candidate

* "It hit me very early on that something was terribly wrong, that I would see silos full of food and supermarkets full of food, and kids starving. ... In Fair Trade, we see ourselves as this infinitesimal part of the world economy. But somebody's got to come up with an alternative model that says children eating is No. 1."
-- Medea Benjamin, co-founder, Global Exchange, and former U.N. nutritionist

There is hardly a study in the entire literature which fails to demonstrate that satisfaction in work is enhanced or that other generally acknowledged beneficial consequences accrue from a genuine increase in workers' decision-making power. Such consistency of findings, I admit is rare in social research
-- Paul Blumberg

"It is very important for you to know that fair trade leads to better roads, better health and better lives for farmers not just in Nicaragua, but around the world."
-- Rosario Castellon, former director of PRODECOOP

"When people become economically empowered, they gain political and social power. Many of the groups that we work with do more than just produce crafts; they're involved in community development, health and education. For the women we work with, the effe ct is even greater. As they gain employment, they become able to leave abusive situations, to seek legal assistance, to acquire education, to become independent. Their work allows them to be economically significant in the family and gives them leverage to be considered an equal ."
-- Bob Chase, executive director, SERRV International

"The fair price is a solution. It has given us the chance to pay a good price to our farmers. Those who are not in Fair Trade want to participate. For us it is a great opportunity. It gives us hope."
-- Benjamin Cholotío

The low prices paid to small producers on the national market mean that the best Mexican products are exported. Fair Trade makes it possible for small producers to also receive dignifid prices in the national market and to not depend exclusively on export
-- Comercio Justo Me´xico

"The needs of small farmers, whether they grow coffee [in the South] or produce [in the North], may be quite similar. Both groups need better access to and more control over the market. That can only happen if consumers use their market power to vote for fair prices to the grower, better access to financing for small farmers, and more environmentally sustainable production."
-- Rink Dickinson, Co-Director, Equal Exchange

The Equal Exchange warehouse houses organic coffee from peasant farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico. It houses watermelons from disadvantaged, black farmers from Georgia, South Carolina, and other parts of the south. Both the watermelon and the coffee farmers have created co-ops to arrange marketing and give them a chance against larger growers and processors. The implications of this convergence between the work of the watermelon farmers, peach farmers, tea growers, and coffee farmers is immense.
-- Rink Dickinson, Co-Director, Equal Exchange

* “The failure so far of the governments of so many of the worlds most powerful countries in the face of such egregious unfairness ... to make the slightest progress on the issue of fair trade is hard to explain."
-- Colin Firth

* When I visited coffee farms in Ethiopia, the farmers could not believe we spend a week's wages in their country on a cup of coffee in ours, because they see so little of the profits. Oxfam's fair trade campaign helps right this wrong.
-- Colin Firth

I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth will starve in the process.
-- Benjamin Harrison

"Fair trade. Would it not be more logical to label unfair products?"
-- Loesje

"A bite of fair Trade chocolate means a lot to farmers in the South. It opens the doors to development and gives children access to healthcare, education, and a decent standard of living."
-- K. Ohemeng-Tinyase, Managing Director of Kuapa Kokoo cocoa cooperative, Ghana

"Fair Trade is part of a larger movement about corporate social responsibility, influenced by the public's desire to deal with companies that are (committed) to workplace quality, the environment and employee well-being."
--Mac McCoy, president, dZi--The Tibet Collection

Fair Trade Quotes

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Fair Trade Day - 2nd Saturday in May

 

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