PRESTON & SOUTH RIBBLE FAIRTRADE GROUP

 

Fair's Fair

Every day of our lives we eat food produced in many other countries. When we purchase these products in our supermarket we expect to get a fair deal. Do we ever think of those who grow that food and whether they get a fair deal? Most food producers in the Developing World are paid so little that they are unable to feed their children adequately, pay fees for their education, even at Primary level, or pay for health care if it is needed. Sadly people are not provided with free education or health care in the Developing World. Communities remain uneducated, children grow up malnourished and people die needlessly as a result. There is now an alternative. Increasingly supermarkets are stocking an ever increasing range of fairly traded products, coffee, tea, sugar, orange juice, snack bars, chocolate, cocoa, biscuits and bananas for example. To reassure you that these are genuine fair trade products each carries the Fair Trade Mark. This mark guarantees that the food producers were paid fairly, that their working conditions are safe and good and that their lives have been enhanced by this purchase. Many producer groups are small co-operatives of farmers and they also receive a Fair Trade Premium which they use as they wish for community development. The group may put in a well for clean water, they may employ a teacher for their children or they may build a maternity ward. In such simple ways as changing our shopping habits we can improve the lives of many desperately poor and needy people. Buying one fairly traded product makes a difference. Why don't you start to make this difference this week?