Fairtrade Fortnight 2023

Next Monday (27th February) sees the start of the annual Fairtrade jamboree, Fairtrade Fortnight. It will be kicked off by the Mayor, Cllr Doris Jiagge, at a launch event at the Co-op in Lancaster Road (10am-noon). There will be two Fairtrade hampers raffled, both donated by the Co-op, one for the Mayor's charity, one for charities the Co-op supports. Full details are in the What's On section..

So what is Fairtrade? It's an arrangement to ensure that poor farmers in developing countries get a fair price for their products – enough to feed their families, send the children to school and have at least basic healthcare. The prices of commodities like coffee, chocolate or bananas vary wildly, at the whims of the rich world's Stock Exchanges; when it's high the local co-operatives get that high price for their produce; when it's low they get the Fairtrade price.

It's simple enough – but it does need us to buy as much as we can of goods with that Fairtrade logo on; most Fairtrade co-operatives sell only a small proportion of what they produce (15% would be fairly typical) to the Fairtrade intermediaries – the rest has to go on the open market, where sometimes they get less back than the production costs.