Fair and Ethical Trade
Gareth Thomas launches Fairtrade fortnight with speech on agriculture and small farmers
MoS Gareth Thomas is speaking today at a Fairtrade conference on the global food crisis and small farmers.
The conference will explore the effects of the economic crisis on small-scale producers, discuss whether current responses are adequate and examine the role of Fairtrade in supporting solutions.
There has been progress in reducing income poverty and hunger, but not everywhere and not enough. The World Bank estimates that over 100 million more people could become poor as a result of the economic crisis. – equivalent to seven years lost in terms of poverty reduction.
The underlying demand for food will continue to rise as the population grows. The World Bank estimates that 50% more food will need to be produced by 2030.
The number of undernourished could increase by 5 – 170 million by 2080.
Small farmers are a key part of the solution. 2.5 billion of the world’s 3 billion rural inhabitants are involved in agriculture: 1.5 billion of them living in smallholder households and 800 million of them working in smallholder households. The size of this rural population is expected to continue to grow until 2020.
How does Fairtrade fit in? Fairtrade sales €2.3 billion worldwide in 2007, a 47% year-to-year increase. This is still a tiny fraction of world trade in merchandise, but fair trade products are becoming significant in some product categories in Europe and North America. In June 2008, it was estimated that over 7.5 million disadvantaged producers and their families were benefiting from fair trade funded infrastructure, technical assistance and community development projects.
You can learn more about Fairtrade by visiting http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/