Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Ta ble 17.4
Certified fair trade producer organizations in Africa
Coffee
Cocoa
Tea
Bananas
Other
Fruit
Flowers
Wine
Other*
fresh fruits
juice
Burkina Faso
2
2
Cameroon
2
1
1
Egypt
3
3
Ethiopia
3
Ghana
1
1
8
Ivory Coast
1
2
Kenya
1
11
Malawi
2
Mali
1
3
Mozambique
1
1
Rw anda
6
Senegal
1
1
South Africa
5
22
2
22
1
Tanzania
7
6
2
Uganda
12
4
1
Zambia
1
3
Total**
33
4
17
1
40
2
13
22
18
Notes:
* Includes honey, sugar, cotton, rice, herbs, vegetables and nuts.
** Includes countries not listed above.
Source:
FLO-Cert (2005).
FLO-I, 2006a). In South Africa, for instance, fair trade estates must uphold national
Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies, increasing black land ownership (Kruger
and du Toit, 2007).
For small-scale producers in Africa, the most direct bene
ts from fair trade come from
the higher guaranteed prices. The importance of these price guarantees is clearest in the
case of co
fi
ee, where the FLO minimum price has far exceeded the world market price for
most of the past 15 years (Raynolds et al., 2007; Tallontire, 2003). This price
ff
fl
oor has
meant the di
ee
growers. In addition to protecting producers from world price slumps, fair trade provides
a social premium to be invested in community projects. The fair trade premium supports
much-needed education, health, food self-su
ff
erence between survival and bankruptcy for many small-scale co
ff
ciency and farm improvement projects for
small-scale producers. For large estates in Africa the FLO price
fl
oor provides economic
stability, but it is the social premium that most bene
ts workers. This social premium
funds the purchase of plantation ownership shares and supports educational, health,
transportation and housing projects. For example, the Herkulu Tea Estate of Tanzania
has utilized fair trade funds to repair workers' homes, improve school ventilation systems,
build a medical dispensary and establish a fair trade shop so that workers may have access
to essential food items at wholesale prices (Transfair USA, 2007a). Research suggests that
both small farmers and estate laborers bene
fi
t most from fair trade's multifaceted infor-
mal and formal support for organizational capacity building (Raynolds et al., 2004).
fi
