All about Fair Trade
Bruce Crowther MBE, Executive Director of the FIG Tree said, “The slave trade abolitionist message was ‘It is simply immoral that people should be allowed to suffer in order to provide us with luxuries such as tea, coffee and sugar at a cheap price’ and sadly that message is still true today. There are people in Ghana growing cocoa for our chocolate that do not have access to clean drinking water and this is simply immoral. We can change this however, by buying Fair Trade products.”
Madam Ferida is one of millions of growers around the world who spend their lives producing crops that we consume- often in the form of luxuries that we take for granted – like chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar and cotton.
“No farmer expects to have an easy life, but we do value our dignity, and we want a bit of control over our lives. In the days before the cooperative and Fair Trade, the dealers would name their price. Sometimes we ended up working for nothing. Now we deal with people who respect us and pay a fair price – Fair Trade has shown us that there is another way.”
Fair trade ensures that farmers are paid a price for their products that covers the cost of production and provides a sustainable income. But farmers can only sell their crops as Fair Trade if people are willing to buy them – and thanks to Fair Trade campaigners around the world, consumer demand for Fair Trade products has never been greater. The small town of Garstang has played a special part in the development of Fair Trade – and The FIG Tree is here to celebrate that story.
All the tea, coffee and chocolate served at The FIG Tree are Fairly Traded.