Discover Fair Trade

Source: TransFair USA

Throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa, family farmers follow generations of tradition to cultivate food products we enjoy everyday. Yet many small-scale farmers in the developing world don’t receive a fair price for their crops. These isolated rural communities lack direct market access, often selling their premium crops below the cost of production to local middlemen who misrepresent global prices. This cycle of debt forces many to abandon their land and years of agricultural heritage, destroying the social and cultural fabric of these communities. When farming communities in the developing world suffer, the whole world suffers – forced immigration, inferior-quality products and large-scale farming methods that often compromise the environment.

More and more, consumers are not only asking themselves, “Is this good for me?” they’re also wondering, “Is this good for others and the environment?” In today’s world, we rarely have the opportunity to meet the farmers behind our daily staples face-to-face and learn their story. Americans want to buy products that support their values, but they lead busy lives and don’t necessarily know how.

When you purchase Fair Trade Certified™ products you are directly supporting a better life for farming families in the developing world through fair prices, community development and eco-friendly farming practices. Fair Trade farmers market their own harvests through direct, long-term contracts with international buyers, learning how to bootstrap their businesses and compete in the global marketplace. This empowerment lifts farming families from poverty through trade, not aid, keeping food on the table, children in school and families on their land.

Fair Trade Certification has transformed communities. Through the Hijos del Campo (Children of the Countryside) foundation, Costa Rican coffee cooperative COOCAFE has provided 1,502 direct scholarships for students and funded 224 local schools. Coffee cooperative Cooperativa Café Timor in East Timor built 33 healthcare clinics that offer free service to 18,000 members.
Fair Trade Certification also benefits farm workers. Following a major landslide that destroyed 300 homes, workers at the Ambootia Tea Garden in India started a reforestation program, planting 50,000 shade trees per year to reduce soil erosion and keep their villages on solid ground.

Look for the special Fair Trade Certified label and join thousands of U.S. consumers who have discovered they can make a difference in the world without ever leaving the grocery aisle.

TransFair USA is the only independent, third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States, and one of twenty-one members of Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO), the world’s most rigorous social, economic and environmental certification system. Only products that meet FLO’s strict standards are allowed to display the Fair Trade Certified label. Since 1999, U.S. sales of Fair Trade Certified products have ensured nearly $80 million in above-market revenue for over 1 million farmers, workers and their families in 50 countries.