FAIRTRADE in our lives

It is very funny sometimes to listen to what people think about Fair Trade and the goods which are sold. Sadly the bad old days of sawdust coffee are remembered, but we all know of course that those days are long past. Sometimes people think that the food stuffs do not keep as long as commercial goods – that might be true, but only because the cookies for example are so delicious that no-body gets a chance to put them in a tin to see how long they could keep! The actual shelf life is the same as any other type of foods.

There are two other things said which are a bit more serious, and perhaps do need a bit of talking about. One is that the teas and coffees, and some of the other things, are more expensive than some of the ranges in the supermarkets. That is indeed true, and is the very reason why as Christian people we should be setting the example by buying Fair Trade – if they can charge less, what kind of trade is being done to manage that? The goods sold here on our stall are sold without any profit being made. A shop could buy in much larger quantities of course, and get a discount to pass on to you, while still giving the producers a Fair Trade price. That is fine, but if the shops other goods are very much less in price, maybe you would like to ask their producers why that is? It might be interesting to hear the answers, if you got any.

Someone said to me once that they ‘didn’t do politics’, when I asked why they did not buy Fair Trade goods. Sorry, but every time we open our mouths to eat or drink something, even tap water, we are ‘doing politics’! As a very great person once said, ‘all it takes for evil to be done is that ordinary people look away’, they do not need to do the evil for themselves. Not looking at the wickedness that is done to the worlds producers of the things we buy is to permit evil to carry on unchecked . However, we can stop it, quietly, with no fuss – just close our purses and wallets, refuse our cards, don’t write the cheques, for the things which are evilly produced, and buy the others. A fair trade t-shirt fits even better with a feeling of doing good attached, a pretty necklace sparkles even better with happiness and hope in it, and I won’t tell you about fair trade undies and their effects!! Give Fair Trade a go my friends, this is indeed ‘doing politics’, of the only kind that really does make a difference.

Try it and see.