In the late 1980s, when Mexican President Carlos Salinas Gortari (1988-1994) began to approach major economic powers — first in Europe, then in North America — with the idea of forging a trade deal, he and his U.S.-trained economic advisers aimed to alter the basic structure of the relationship between the government and its people. The globalized, free-market model that would come to define NAFTA (which went into effect Jan. 1, 1994) centers on the idea that multinational corporate investment is the driver of prosperity and development. Thus, decades of robust, state-driven economic intervention were framed as antiquated and ineffective for bringing Mexico into the 21st-century global economy and slated for dissolution.

While the effects of this shift rippled into all sectors of life, the food system was an area of particularly radical change. Previously, the Mexican state saw its role as one of bridging producers and consumers, with a network of programs and institutions that supported prices, assisted farmers in obtaining agricultural inputs, distributed farm goods to cities, and ensured that neither rural producers nor urban workers would go hungry. All of this was swept away in anticipation of NAFTA. The U.S. negotiators did not need to say aloud that Mexico would have to eliminate any protectionist policies; because of a currency devaluation prior to the deal and the resulting loans from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, structural adjustment was well underway prior to the start of negotiations. Further, Mexico, as the weakest member of the deal, knew that it would have to cede the most to get Canada and the United States to sign. Therefore, most of the work of radically altering the state’s contract with its people was done before negotiations began. The elimination by the Mexican Congress of Article 27, the provision of the 1917 constitution that had ensured communal landholding and land distribution after the Mexican Revolution, was the starkest example of how radical Mexico’s advance preparation for NAFTA was.

Under NAFTA, Small-Scale Farmers Struggle to Compete

What followed was both spectacular in its scope and mundane in its ubiquity. Within a decade of NAFTA’s implementation, one in ten Mexicans would come to reside in the United States, most of them without the benefit of a legal way of migrating. NAFTA had ensured the mobility of goods and capital but pointedly excluded mobility of people. Even more invisible and ubiquitous were the subtle ways that the entire social and economic landscape was transformed. Without the supports that had protected small-scale agriculture, many farmers struggled to get their goods to market. Many gave up on farming and looked to other sectors in the economy. Before long, the flood of cheap corn and other products from the United States — which never stopped its billions of dollars in commodity grain subsidies — made it even harder to compete.

Key to all of this was a shift in logic on the part of policymakers from a model of food sovereignty to one of food security. Food sovereignty is the notion that a place should produce all or most of the food needed by its population. In contrast, national food security is the idea that a place can produce no food so long as it has purchasing power to meet its food needs by importing foods from the global marketplace. Soon after NAFTA’s implementation, Mexico would import 42% of its food and almost fully withdraw from supporting small-scale agricultural producers. At the same time, NAFTA favored the consolidation of land and productive capacity into fewer and larger farms dedicated to export agriculture, leading to Mexico producing and exporting a good portion of the tomatoes, avocados, limes, mangoes, cucumbers, and peppers consumed in the rest of North America.

Working People Continue to Pay the Costs of Free Trade

Contrary to the ways politicians sometimes frame it in the United States, Mexico was not “winning” in this trade deal, and we also should not assume that the United States and Canada “won” either. Even though the diet of the average person living in a cold climate improved with much more available and affordable fruits and vegetables, even in winter, for most people, NAFTA has not meant “winning.” My analysis leads me to the conclusion that in all of the signatory countries, working people were and continue to be disadvantaged by the shifts in the economy that NAFTA brought. The greatest beneficiaries are the corporations that have seen their capacity to operate multi-nationally greatly enhanced; they can move production where labor and raw materials costs are lowest while finding new consumers across the continent.

The result? We can see what NAFTA has meant for Mexico by looking at three simple numbers: 45.5%, 176, and 80,000. The first number is the poverty rate. The second number, 176, is the number of liters of soda consumed by each person in Mexico annually as of 2012, and even after a massive public health intervention and soda tax, the consumption rates remain among the world’s highest. The third, 80,000, is the number of diabetes deaths in Mexico annually. While political leaders in the three signatory countries of NAFTA promised increased prosperity and development, Mexico’s poverty rate has remained stubbornly close to half of the population, even as a tenth of the population left the country, and other Latin American countries that did not sign trade deals have seen double-digit drops in poverty over the same period. Transformed food and economic systems have displaced people from land and agriculture-based ways of life, leading to longer working hours, longer commutes, and family separation. The same trends have simultaneously made processed foods and beverages more affordable and accessible, while milpa-based cuisine (corn, beans, chiles) is harder to come by. Even water has become less accessible due to the privatization of aquifers by soda bottlers and a neglected infrastructure makes potable water dear, as even soda is cheaper. Finally, the country has experienced the onset of a diabetes epidemic, with more people diagnosed at a younger age than ever before, claiming more lives than any other cause and more than the annual death toll of the drug war. Together these numbers paint a picture of how Mexico and the health of its people have been transformed by NAFTA.

Building Stronger Communities with Human-Centered Development

What are the alternatives? Human-centered development would take into consideration the well being of communities and the sustainability of the environment. Rather than a continual trend toward expansion and mechanization of agriculture, it would sustain small-scale agriculture and distribution systems for connecting producers to consumers. Fruits and vegetables would be framed not as commodities but as health resources as crucial as access to healthcare. Not everyone wants to work the land, but those who do should be able to do so viably, and their contributions to the economy, cultural heritage, environmental sustainability, and health should be celebrated. Corporations should not be given such facilitated access to expansion, markets and natural resources (like aquifers), especially while their products are known to cause and exacerbate non-communicable chronic diseases. They should pay their fair share in taxes and be held accountable for excessive pesticide use, contamination, and health consequences of the consumption of their products.

Most of us know from experience that eating a tomato fresh from the vine and without chemicals tastes better than a tomato that was picked unripe, ripened with chemicals, doused in wax, and shipped 1,000 miles to a supermarket. Making it possible for small-scale tomato growers to flourish is good for us all. Imposing tariffs on one set of industrial producers over another only helps corporations, not small-scale growers or consumers.

The post Human-Centered Trade: Still Possible? appeared first on Fair World Project.

With the Cold War drawing to a close and pundits declaring the definitive triumph of free market capitalism, the EZLN played an important role in providing an example of what a new wave of popular movements might look like. With some historical perspective, it is even clearer what a critical contribution that was—the Zapatista movement has influenced grassroots activists and social movements like few others of the late 20^th century.

The legacy of colonialism—centuries of racism and exploitation—was the historical backdrop of the Zapatista uprising. Chiapas, Mexico’s southernmost state, is rich in natural resources but one of the poorest states in Mexico. It has one of the country’s largest indigenous populations, and some of the highest rates of malnutrition, maternal mortality, and illiteracy. Chiapas also has a long history of conflict over unequal land distribution. After peaceful movements for land reform in the 1960s and ‘70s were met with government indifference and increased repression, many indigenous villagers concluded that armed struggle was the only path left to them. In November 1983, the EZLN was founded as a small guerrilla cell.

NAFTA and Global Capitalism Threaten Indigenous Communities

After ten years of clandestine organizing, the Zapatistas decided they would rather risk dying from a bullet than continue watching their children die from preventable diseases. They chose a symbolic date for their uprising: Jan. 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect. The EZLN was one of the first popular movements to recognize neoliberalism as a dangerous new stage of global capitalism, calling NAFTA a death sentence for the indigenous peasants of Mexico.

As dawn broke on New Year’s Day, Zapatista troops occupied seven towns throughout eastern Chiapas, including San Cristóbal de las Casas, a quaint colonial city nestled in the misty highlands of Chiapas and a major tourist destination. The Zapatistas read their declaration of war from the balcony of San Cristóbal’s municipal palace but slipped away in time to escape the full brunt of the Mexican military. The uprising lasted less than two weeks, but transformed the EZLN into one of the most well-known social movements in the world, and one that would inspire an extraordinary level of solidarity.

Soon after the 1994 uprising, the EZLN and the Mexican government began peace negotiations. Simultaneously, however, the Mexican government was waging low-intensity warfare against the EZLN’s civilian support base.

In 1996, the EZLN and the Mexican government signed the San Andrés Peace Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture. The Mexican government, however, never implemented the San Andrés Accords. In 2001, the Mexican Congress passed the Indigenous Law instead – a watered down version of the San Andrés Accords that the EZLN rejected out of hand. The center-left Partido de la Revolución Democrática (Party of the Democratic Revolution, PRD) voted for the law, which the EZLN considered a deep betrayal. Current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, was mayor of Mexico City at the time and a key leader of the PRD. The Zapatistas have been critical of AMLO ever since, and this conflict could shape their relationship with Mexico’s first left-leaning president in decades. AMLO has recently proposed incorporating the San Andrés Accords into the Mexican Constitution, indicating his interest in reestablishing trust with the Zapatistas. The Zapatistas, however, have long argued that, under neoliberalism, the capitalist class is always in control, regardless of which political party is in power.

Building Indigenous Autonomy

Although never implemented, the San Andrés Accords created a framework that the Zapatistas have implemented on their own. After the passage of the Indigenous Law in 2001, the ELZN turned away from any further engagement with the Mexican government and has concentrated on the construction of indigenous autonomy within its own territory.

The Zapatista structures of indigenous autonomy have extended access to rudimentary health care and education to rural villages in Chiapas. The Zapatistas exercise self-determination through local and regional autonomous governments. Economic cooperatives invest resources back into their communities, developing an economy based on collective effort and community wellbeing, rather than competition and profit.

Over the past 25 years, the Zapatista movement has had a significant impact locally, nationally, and internationally. In Zapatista territory, in addition to its project of indigenous autonomy, the EZLN carried out a series of land takeovers, occupying large ranches and redistributing the land to peasants. This distribution of wealth continues to shape living conditions for Zapatista villages farming on reclaimed land today.

For many people throughout Mexico, the Zapatistas represented the voice of the voiceless. By empowering civil society and challenging the status quo, the EZLN arguably contributed to ending decades of one-party rule in Mexico when the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI) lost the presidential elections in 2000.

Since 1994, the EZLN has also engaged in dialogue with international civil society, inspiring a generation of young activists to organize for social justice in their own contexts. The First Intercontinental Gathering for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism in 1996, and other international gatherings organized by the EZLN, helped jumpstart a worldwide anti-globalization movement.

Radically Redefining Gender Roles in the Zapatista Movement

People around the world have been inspired by images of Zapatista women: Major Ana María wearing a black ski mask and brown uniform, leading indigenous troops during the uprising; Comandanta Ramona standing next to Subcomandante Marcos during peace negotiations with the Mexican government, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder; Comandanta Ester, draped in a white shawl with embroidered flowers, addressing the Mexican Congress to demand respect for indigenous rights and culture. The dignity with which these women carried themselves embodies what the Zapatista movement has come to represent—the resistance of the marginalized and the forgotten against the powerful.

When the EZLN began organizing in rural Chiapas, women there were experiencing an extraordinary level of violence and discrimination. Women were often married against their will, and commonly had a dozen children or more. Domestic violence was generally considered normal and acceptable, and a woman could not leave the house without her husband or father’s permission. Women’s confinement to the private sphere translated into very limited participation in public life.

But gender roles were radically redefined in the context of the Zapatista movement, as women became guerrilla insurgents and political leaders, healers and educators, and members of economic cooperatives. A handful of Zapatista women in key roles of leadership, combined with a broad push from women in the Zapatista base, succeeded in passing the Women’s Revolutionary Law and achieving some remarkable transformations in institutions, behaviors, and expectations around women’s rights. Women’s organizing also led to the banning of alcohol in Zapatista territory, which women credit with a significant reduction in domestic violence.

At a regional women’s gathering in the Zapatista community of Morelia, a group of Zapatista women described the process this way: “Thanks to our organization [the EZLN], we have opened our eyes and opened our hearts. (…) We joined the struggle and that’s when things started to change and we stopped being oppressed. (…) In community and regional assemblies we participate side by side with the men. We have the right to hold any position within our organization. We also have the right to leave the house, to dance, to sing, to play sports, to go to a community party. Today there is hope and freedom in our lives.”

The Zapatista Movement Inspires a Shared Vision for a Just Society

Although the EZLN does not occupy the place it once did in the popular imagination, the Zapatista movement continues to offer lessons to social justice advocates and activists that might be more relevant than ever. In 1994, the Zapatistas had the chutzpah to declare war on the Mexican government, and to take on global capitalism and patriarchy; but they had the humility to know that none of us have all the answers, that we make the road by walking. The Zapatista movement also continues to offer a viable example of local alternatives to global capitalism, albeit on a small scale.

In a moment of heightened polarization in the United States and around the world, it is worth looking back on the Zapatistas’ capacity to remind us what we have in common. The Zapatistas were fighting for land reform and indigenous autonomy in rural Mexico, but they succeeded in communicating a vision of a just society so universal that people all over the world felt included in their struggle. A quarter-century after their uprising, perhaps the most meaningful, lasting lesson from the Zapatista movement is a spark of hope, a sense of what is possible, even in dark and uncertain times.

WRITTEN BY: Hilary Klein

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The post A Spark of Hope: Reflections on the 25th Anniversary of the Zapatista Movement appeared first on Fair World Project.

Coffee serves as a way for many of us to start our days and provides some much-needed energy to our morning hours. For the farmers of over 12 million small coffee farms in the world, their days start with coffee as well, but instead of enjoying it in a cup, they are walking the steep inclines of their parcels to tend to their coffee trees. For these farmers, coffee isn’t a delicious beverage or a delivery vehicle for caffeine, rather it’s the means by which they feed their families. In coffee communities around the world, there is a consensus that a crisis isn’t coming — it’s already here.

The word “crisis” is deliberate and not used lightly. The unfortunate combination of climate change and low prices is causing extreme stress to coffee producers around the globe and is forcing many to face food insecurity. This crisis is now being acknowledged by many of the participants in the value chain.

Temperatures are increasing, weather patterns are changing, and diseases are impacting crops at higher rates. By 2050, an estimated half of the world’s coffee-producing regions will no longer be suitable for coffee production. Climate change has an immediate and sustained impact by reducing crop yields and increasing costs of operation. Furthermore, climate change negatively impacts coffee quality, resulting in lower prices paid to farmers.

An extremely volatile international market is pushing coffee prices down even further. The coffee market has been trading under a dollar per pound, far below the cost of production. To many, the market price seems irrational as it does not reflect the economic reality that coffee farmers face, nor does it take into account the investment required to produce high-quality, sustainably grown coffee. Consequently, farmers debate whether or not they can continue to build their lives around coffee production. For young people, the answer is often a resounding no. Resigned to that reality, many must decide between staying in their communities to pursue a different crop or migrating to more prosperous countries, often the United States.

Working Together to Solve the Coffee Crisis

In my role as Director of Coffee at Peace Coffee, a 100% fair trade and organic coffee roaster, I spend a lot of time reflecting on these issues. I often think back to the many conversations I have had with coffee farmers around the world. I remember listening to a group of women in Northern Peru discussing the extreme challenges they faced as mothers when a sustainable price wasn’t paid. I recall, during my time with farmers in Guatemala, realizing that low prices and reduced yields could compel coffee farmers to migrate to the United States, risking their lives to support their families. Conversely, I witnessed the miraculous achievements of Honduran farmers who are leveraging innovative organic agricultural practices and the support of cooperatives to combat the direct impacts of climate change, helping to secure their futures as coffee farmers.

The current crisis hitting the coffee lands can be boiled down to statistics, but thinking of this issue only in numbers glosses over the daily struggles of those involved in the supply chain. “Crisis” is not a word that immediately elicits hope. But thinking back to my conversations with coffee farmers gives this crisis a human face, and I see the power that we have to innovate and build resiliency. If we can acknowledge the existence of this crisis together, we can begin to build real, sustained, and meaningful change to the way coffee is grown and valued.

Currently, strategies are being employed that create an immensely positive impact on the coffee value chain. Fair trade has shown that by building alliances, farmers and roasters can disconnect from international market prices that fail to take the true cost of production into account. This is a powerful reminder that low, unsustainable prices do not need to be a reality for coffee farmers or coffee drinkers. Additionally, through fair trade, farmers are organized into cooperatives, which provide training and support to entire communities impacted by climate change. By purchasing coffee from dedicated fair trade brands, consumers know that prices support a sustainable livelihood for coffee farmers and cooperatives providing vital assistance to vulnerable communities.

Curbing Climate Change with Organic Agriculture

The coffee grown by small-scale farmers who use regenerative organic agricultural practices is also climate-friendly. Coffee farmers who engage in these practices do not use chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or monocropping practices, all of which can contribute to climate change. Instead, these small-scale farmers are creating a natural balance in their plots to overcome disease and pests, rebuild their soil health, and protect the shade cover and biodiversity on their land. These practices turn farms into carbon sinks, further reducing the impact of climate change on all of us. Lastly, many actors in the value chain are now partnering with coffee farmers to provide the solutions needed to combat climate change. At Peace Coffee, we invest in the Carbon, Climate, and Coffee Initiative. This fund focuses on helping farmers adapt to the new reality of climate change by supporting farmer-to-farmer training in climate adaptation strategies, promoting field renovation and pruning practices to increase yield, and teaching soil regeneration methods to improve carbon sequestration. At Peace Coffee, we are not coffee farmers, but by helping to provide access to resources and training that address the concerns and needs of our farmer partners, we can build climate change resiliency in our value chain.

Coffee has the incredible ability to connect people and places thousands of miles away. I believe that, through this connection, coffee farmers, roasters, and drinkers can all play a role in overcoming the crisis caused by climate change and low coffee prices. By supporting and valuing fair trade and organic coffee, we can make this moment a turning point, away from crisis and toward sustainability. This path values every person who makes a delicious cup of coffee possible.

WRITTEN BY: Anne Costello

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The post Confronting the Crisis in Coffee appeared first on Fair World Project.

In June 2018, I traveled to Ecuador with Equal Exchange and their partners along the supply chain to visit members of AsoGuabo, a cooperative of approximately 130 small-scale fair trade banana farmers. Since 1998, their grassroots organizing has built something rare in the banana industry: a small-scale farmer banana supply chain.

Bananas are big business in Ecuador. Drive through the countryside, and the trees line the road like corn in Iowa — an unending blur. The brands Dole and Chiquita are everywhere: on packinghouses along the roads, on buildings, trucks, and boxes discarded along the highway.

Bananas are such a massive enterprise that there are two ports side by side in Guayaquil, where most of the country’s imports and exports pass through. Dole owns one, and the other is for the rest of the country’s exports. It’s staggering to see just how big this business is.

The Many vs. The Mighty: Two Banana Supply Chains

As we visited AsoGuabo members’ farms, we saw the other side of the banana trade: small-scale farmers growing bananas, some intercropped with other crops, often cocoa. Their plots of land are small, so each week they produce just a few pallets of the highly perishable fruit. To get their bananas to market, members have to pool their resources. On each farm, one day a week is reserved for harvesting and packing the bananas. Starting at dawn, each farmer begins cutting the bananas, hauling them from the field, washing them, and packing them into the same cases you see in the back of your local supermarket. All across the region, small-scale farmers are packing boxes, stacking pallets, and loading them onto a few rented box trucks making the rounds and ferrying the pallets to AsoGuabo’s central warehouse. Slowly, together, they fill a shipping container.

Unlike other bananas, AsoGuabo’s leave the port without the name Dole or Chiquita on the box. This is a big deal; it means that a cooperative of small-scale farmers controls every aspect of their business. And they do it using just a few rented box trucks and a small warehouse. Meanwhile, their main competitor owns massive ocean freighters and an entire port.

Big Fruit: A Bloody History

In many ways, it’s fitting that this story of bananas has become a story about logistics. The history of this fruit — and the reason for its ubiquity in our supermarkets today — is intertwined with the story of one man and the banana trees he planted along railroad easements at the turn of the last century. While Minor Keith and his brothers set out to make a fortune building railroad lines, they ended up building the infamous United Fruit Company. United Fruit Company, now Chiquita Brands, is notorious for its dealings in Latin America. The company gained control of large swaths of land in Central America through a series of shady business deals, in which they promised to build railroad lines in exchange for land and the rights to profit off of the railroads. Those landholdings gave them tremendous power in the region as the company had their tentacles in transportation, communication services, and governments. Perhaps most infamously, they collaborated with the CIA to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Guatemala in 1954. Their goal was to prevent land reform that would break up their plantations and diminish their profits. That coup led to a 36-year civil war that left an estimated 200,000 dead or disappeared.

United Fruit’s marketing efforts made the banana a staple fruit; their logistics systems made that possible. Frederick Upham Adams, a writer of the time, wrote of “the banana of commerce,” representing “man’s profound triumph over nature.” The triumph he was referring to was making such an improbable fruit available so cheaply.

The High Cost of a Cheap Banana

Yet that cheap price tag hides high costs. Big fruit companies built their wealth on the backs of hundreds of thousands of unpaid and underpaid workers across Central and South America, many thousands of whom died from exploitation and labor rights abuses. This is not just ancient history; the banana industry is still plagued by injustice.

A recent study quantified the hidden costs of growing bananas, from underpaid farmers and workers, water exhaustion, and other environmental factors. For every case of conventional, plantation-grown bananas, that number stands at $7.33/case.

That’s $7.33 per case that continues to enrich the big fruit companies at the expense of communities in countries throughout Central and South America. The exploitation and extraction of wealth continues.

Building an Alternative to Corporate Fruit

Small-scale farmer organizations like AsoGuabo offer an alternative model to corporate fruit. Instead of enriching multinational corporations, these cooperatives are building a supply chain by and for small-scale farmers. They are also creating professional jobs and investing in their surrounding communities, including in healthcare and income diversification opportunities for families. As we drive through the country visiting fields, we stop at the farm of Don Vicente and his wife, Ana, in the community of Tenguel. Once a United Fruit plantation spanning over 7,600 acres, striking workers and small-scale farmers in Tenguel came together and seized the land in the 1960s. Today, they grow bananas on their own land using organic farming techniques. In so many ways, it is the opposite of Big Fruit’s extractive plantation model.

And yet these small-scale farmers are still expected to compete against Dole and Chiquita. Too many grocery stores expect these small-scale farmers’ bananas to sell for the price dictated by the system built by United Fruit, now Chiquita, over a century ago.

Dole and Chiquita have both jumped on the fair trade bandwagon. Both companies now sell some bananas with a fair trade certification, their costs subsidized by their conventional banana sales, and the massive economies of scale and externalized costs they’ve built up over a century of exploitation. While the fair trade seal on these big fruit companies may be the same, the supply chain behind it is completely different from the small-scale farmer’s supply chain. This is why so many fair trade advocates have long been skeptical about the entry of the big fruit companies and their plantations into the fair trade certification system.

In the 1900s, the hidden costs of banana production may have looked like a “triumph of man over nature.” But, in 2019, the bill for those cheap bananas is coming due. Climate change, growing concern about wages and water, and a creeping disease that threatens the extinction of the common Cavendish banana—all mean that it is high time to consider how our bananas are grown.

Small-scale farmer cooperatives and their allies along the supply chain offer an alternative to the Big Fruit companies and their continued extraction of wealth from producer communities. Thriving communities or continuing the legacy of exploitation? These bananas offer us a choice—and a model for a fairer future.

The post The Many vs. The Mighty: A Story of Small-Scale Banana Farmers appeared first on Fair World Project.

According to the World Bank, 66% of Hondurans live in poverty, and one in five live in extreme poverty. Pundits tend to talk about poverty as if it were an accident or an abstract concept — it is not. It is born and fomented in a global economy that is designed to churn out poverty wages and inhumane working conditions, robbing workers of their health, vitality, and livelihoods. Multinational brands, like Dole, Chiquita, and Del Monte, produce in Central America under the guise of “job creation” and “sustainable development.” But instead of providing decent work, jobs created by global supply chains are fundamentally based on the idea of underpaid and disposable workers. The people who grow our food are treated like silent machines that service the world’s food system.

When Workers Unite: Confronting Fyffes’ Labor Abuses

Thousands of miles away from U.S. supermarket shelves, the melon workers of southern Honduras are confronting this race to the bottom by standing up to a global fruit giant that has long used their labor but never respected their rights.

Fyffes is the billion-dollar fruit company that Americans have never heard of. They are the top supplier of bananas to Europe and the main supplier of winter-season melons to the United States. For over a decade, Honduran workers have reported rampant wage theft and exposure to toxic agrochemicals on Fyffes’ melon farms.

In Honduras, Fyffes employs up to 8,000 seasonal melon workers, the majority of whom are women. By 2016, these workers had had enough and decided to organize a union with El Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Agroindustria y Similares (STAS). In response, local bosses fired dozens of outspoken union leaders and launched a violent union-busting campaign, physically, verbally, and psychologically harassing the union members. The violence peaked in April 2017 when Moises Sanchez, STAS’ Secretary-General, was kidnapped, beaten and threatened with death by unknown assailants. Sanchez survived the attack, but the crime remains unpunished, sending an undeniable message to workers that their fight for liberation is one that confronts powerful elites in the country.

According to the AFL-CIO, at least 31 trade unionists have been killed in Honduras since 2009. Violence against workers and the suppression of their rights are tools that local employers use to keep production costs low and remain competitive in the global economy. Multinational companies often take advantage of their market leverage by threatening countries to take their business elsewhere when governments enforce environmental, indigenous, and labor rights. Under free trade agreements, companies have even filed multimillion-dollar suits against Latin American governments that have enacted laws protecting communities, claiming that these restrictions reduce the value of their investment. As a consequence, governments, like that of Honduras, turn a blind eye to blatant labor rights abuses such as the ones on Fyffes’ melon plantations.

Instead of granting workers their universal right to organize, Fyffes did what most companies do when workers unionize: they spent tens of thousands of dollars hiring expensive consultants and lawyers, created management-controlled “unions” and attempted to distract consumers with watered-down “women’s rights” programming.

Corporate Social Responsibility is Not a Substitute for Worker-Led Union Representation

The difference between STAS’ organizing efforts and Fyffes’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives is that the former is worker-led and can hold bosses accountable through a legally binding union contract, while the latter is merely a corporate-led, voluntary public relations scheme with no real teeth to provide justice and reparations on the ground. Fyffes has used CSR initiatives to cover up union busting and empower local management to continue the abuse with impunity. Fair Trade USA (FTUSA) certified Fyffes’ farms in Honduras despite ongoing labor conflict, and only de-certified them after thousands of people sent emails directly to FTUSA’s CEO demanding the removal of the fair trade label.

At the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), we have seen firsthand how unenforceable codes of conduct and third-party audits have tragically failed workers for the past 30 years, from the deadly factory fires of Bangladesh and Pakistan to the toxic pesticide exposure in the sugarcane fields of Nicaragua. Workers in global supply chains do not need more labels and certifications. They need their right to organize to be respected. They need to have the freedom to denounce abuse in their workplace without the fear of reprisal. Workers are the best defenders of their own rights. They don’t need top-down solutions from corporations that are merely an extension of colonialism and white supremacy.

“Charity is not the same as justice. The farmworkers want Fyffes to follow the law, not to create programs in order to distract from the company’s obligation to remediate labor rights violations,” said Ahrax Mayorga, an organizer with STAS-FESTAGRO. “We’re not against gender programming, but we’re against it when it’s used to cover up labor abuses and circumvent the law.”

Fyffes’ charade is coming to an end. The company was recently expelled from the Ethical Trading Initiative. However, this has not been enough to stop their union busting. An international campaign is now calling on U.S. supermarkets to hold Fyffes accountable.

The fight on Honduran melon farms is a microcosm of the international worker struggle — a struggle against a system that keeps people in poverty while extracting massive profit for corporations. Violence against trade unionists and other human rights defenders in Central America directly contributes to a lack of decent work in the region, one of the many factors that fuels the cycle of poverty and pushes people to migrate. While every human has a right to seek asylum, they also have a right to stay in their communities, feel safe at work, and earn a living wage.

As the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire writes in Home, “No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” Understanding – and addressing – the root causes of migration requires Americans to take a hard look at the legacy of U.S. foreign policy, and how multinational corporations help create the conditions people are running from.

Learn more at LaborRights.org/Fyffes

WRITTEN BY: Gabriela Rosazza

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The post Unfair Fruit: The Multinational Corporations Driving Migration appeared first on Fair World Project.

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The post Chocolate Unwrapped appeared first on Fair World Project.

We asked members of our staff and editorial board to share some of their favorite fairly traded products by organizations that are working to create a mutually beneficial and just global economy.

FAIR. Quinoa Vodka

I’m quite fond of a good cocktail every now and then. FAIR’s Quinoa Vodka is my go-to vodka because of its mild, pleasant nuttiness. Plus, the company emphasizes supporting small-scale farmers. When quinoa got “discovered” as a superfood a few years ago, market prices went up, and big producers entered the market to cash in, making it tough for those for whom this was a traditional staple to compete. How can fair trade support food sovereignty? That seems like a great topic to discuss with a cocktail! – ANNA
fair-drinks.com

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Little Green Radicals Red Classic Dungaree

As a new parent, it feels like there’s always new stuff to purchase for my growing child, and it takes extra digging to find products that I can really feel good about. One company that makes it easy is Little Green Radicals. Their supply chains are transparent, they use fair trade and organic cotton, and their fabrics range from classic solids to on-trend patterns. My only complaint is that they don’t make anything in my size! – JENICA
littlegreenradicals.co.uk

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Mata Traders Shimmer Fan Earrings

I love Mata Trader’s beautiful pieces and unique designs. In the fashion and apparel world, it can be difficult to find fashionable pieces without an exploitative backstory. With a commitment to fair trade and gender equality, each Mata Trader’s purchase has a strong social impact. The simple and bold design of these fan earrings is sure to get compliments, and you can feel good telling your friends that you supported women’s fair trade cooperatives in India. – JULIA
matatraders.com

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Alaffia Vanilla Shea Body Lotion

I love all of Alaffia’s body care products, but my favorite is the Shea Butter and Lemon-grass Body Lotion with Vanilla. Knowing that they only use fairly sourced ingredients helps me rest at night, and I’m inspired by their dedication to empowering Togolese women and creating economically sustainable communities. – DANA
alaffia.com

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AgroEco Coffee from Community Agroecology Network (CAN)

AgroEco Coffee is an alternative trade model developed by the Community Agroecology Network (CAN) and supported by Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting. Partnering with small-scale farmers in Mexico and Nicaragua, it emphasizes the leadership and participation of farmer families in the ecological production of coffee. What I especially like about this model is the explicit commitment to a women’s unpaid labor fund, which compensates women for their uncompensated and often overlooked contributions to childcare, eldercare, and other household activities. – ryan
canunite.org | santacruzcoffee.com

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