good time to get to the root + simplify Fair Trade by tapering Free Trade which is costly to lives everywhere..

[Peace is real!]

here we gather some detail about TPP to try to understand how we can make a difference;

                     http://tppinfo.org/

 
i don`t see how we can say this is secretive if this post exists;

                   http://www.ustr.gov/tpp
           

[kara j lincoln]

11.20.2012

                              NOTE ON ALTERNATIVE TPP-TRACK SIMULATIONS

        http://asiapacifictrade.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/TPP-track-alternatives.pdf

        Frequently asked questions + please note the comment page is error, so we will follow up..
                   
                           We would welcome any additional questions or comments at http://www.ustr.gov/aboutus/contact‐us/your‐comment.

                                   http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/TPPFAQ.pdf

[kara j lincoln]

article from;
                                    Food For Thought

        http://www.foodforthought.net/learn-more/blog/fair-trade-or-free-trade.html

Ever ponder the difference between "Fair" Trade and "Free" Trade? They both sound appealing in their own way, but actually couldn't be more different. Free Trade, and it's parent, "Globalization," represent the current trend in global trade whereby companies search the world for the cheapest labor and lowest bar with regards to labor and environmental regulation. Fair Trade, on the other hand, is a response to the shortcomings of Free Trade. In short, it's an effort to bring some transparency to global trade by inserting standards of fairness into a system once dependent solely on the forces of the liberal free market. Both terms have entered the daily discourse of pundits, academics and the conversations of ordinary folks like us. Though they have very different meanings, they are often confused. Even seasoned journalists use them interchangeably to the detriment of an informed citizenry.

In this case "free" means free to do good and bad. As individuals our free choices are often kept in check because we are accountable for their ramifications by friends, family, our community and law enforcement. On the other hand, while a corporation is made up of people, it is not human by nature. When such an entity can make unhindered free choices, that freedom to choose can result in some universally negative consequences, from environmental degradation to outright human exploitation on a large scale.

Fair Trade Coffee Farmer, Chiapas, Mexico.

Enter Fair Trade, which seeks to address the injustice of global trade by playing in the same arena of the free market, only by different rules. It's an internationally recognized set of standards with the goal of returning more value to the farmer and his community. A good example is coffee. Like many internationally traded commodities, the majority of coffee beans are not grown on vast plantations, but rather on small family owned plots. In the globalization model those farmers are at the mercy of the commodities market represented by the many middlemen that stand between the farmer and the end user. It's not uncommon for farmers to have little choice but sell their crop below cost. In the Fair Trade model, farmers join a "producer cooperative" of other small farmers that then sell to a Fair Trade "buyers cooperative." The buying cooperative must adhere to four core principles:

1.Pay a price to producers that covers the cost of sustainable production and living;
2.Pay a 'premium' that producers can invest in community development;
3.Make partial advance payments when requested by producers;
4.Sign contracts that allow for long-term planning and sustainable production practices.

When small farmers are organized in a cooperative they benefit from access to capital and business resources and because the middle-men are removed form the equation a larger percentage of cost of the cup of coffee goes to the producer and his or her community.

Stella checking out beans drying in the sun, Chiapas, Mexico.

Does it work? Yes. Of course it's not perfect, but it is an excellent start. Working in the developing world in the 1980s convinced me that our global trading structure is inherently unfair to those with less power. There are clear winners and losers as the income gap between rich and poor countries continues to widen. Fair Trade was not an option at that time. Fast forward to 2007. While visiting a Fair Trade coffee producer cooperative it became obvious why Fair Trade offers a viable alternative. Chris and Jody Treter of Higher Grounds Trading Company, and members of a Fair Trade buyers cooperative, met with the leaders of their producer cooperative when Chris asked how they did the previous year. Optimism would best characterize their summary, however, their cooperative truck needed an expensive repair, and as a result, there wasn't much of a surplus to invest in the community. Without missing a beat, Chris offered to pay them more and proceeded to discuss the idea that this increase in purchase price could be set aside for future truck and facility repairs as well as an emergency fund to keep members paid in the event of crop failure. This example of the mutually beneficial "relationship" characterizes the essence of the Fair Trade system.

Does this matter? Perhaps not to some. But when more consumers know about the condition under which their food and products are created, the more empowered they will be to spend their dollars where their values are. Now instead of the old fashioned method of boycotting a company that offends your values, you can now use your grocery budget to reward those that share yours. The engine of this trading system is an enlightened consumer. While it increases every year, we now know that a rapidly growing percentage of consumers are willing to look beyond price and quality and actually pay a premium for goods and services that will bring some greater social value to their purchase. This trend, in part, accounts for the growth in organic and local food, Fair Trade products, as well as other green products rushing to meet this growing demand.

While Fair Trade brings a welcome level of transparency to this global trade, it is currently limited to imported commodities. As a result, there is a domestic fair trade movement happening in this country that seeks to bring fair trade standards to the production of food products grown and processed in this country. That will be a welcome relief to the many consumers who are trying to eat and purchase goods and services closer to home. I'm serving on the Steering Committee of the new Domestic Fair Trade Association and will update you on the progress in future postings. In the meantime, continue to shop with your values and your dollars and we'll all contribute to a more human world.

Please share your thoughts...

Click here for information on Domestic Fair Trade.

For more information on Food For Thought's move to Fair Trade ingredients, click here.
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Comments:

Fair Trade Products
Posts: 2

Re: Fair Trade or Free Trade? They're not the same.
 Comment #2 on Saturday, March 3, 2012 at 09:21 AM
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Very informative and well written post. I really enjoy reading it.
 
Ray Tapajna Tapsearch Com
Posts: 2

Free trade has failed us- Baltimore Sun story
 Comment #1 on Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 05:02 PM
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Both major parties in the USA, supported the free trade agreements that betrayed human dignity in the world day. Free trade is primarily about making production portable and moved anywhere in the world for the sake of cheaper labor. The overhead of long haul ocean, air, rail and truck shipping does not interfere with the process. The shipping acts as an assault on the environment but no one in the save the earth programs talk about this much. Al Gore ignored it. An energy saving light bulb uses up about 8000 miles of energy getting to market. It comes from dirty manufacturing processes in places like China. This is ignored too.
 
Workers become the real commodities being traded. They are put on the world trading block to compete with each other for the same jobs. This is what free trade is all about.

See squid.me/9 and tapsearch.com/flatworld

Photo Credits: All photos by Timothy Young

[kara j lincoln]

http://tradejustice.net/?page=wft 

Why Fair Trade?
A Brief Look at Free Trade in the Global Economy

From around the world, we hear heart-wrenching stories about mistreated and abused workers who earn meager wages. Or worse, we hear about millions of children sold into servitude or forced to work in unsafe conditions for pittance wages to contribute to their family's survival. Unfortunately, these stories are all too common in the new global economy where competitiveness and profits to stockholders are paramount, and poverty is rising. Increasing globalization, along with U.S. government support for free-trade and investment agreements, are exacerbating three intractable problems that now plague almost every nation on earth: income inequalities, job losses and environmental damage
 
Around the world, production, trade and retailing of most goods and services are increasingly concentrated under the control of a small number of corporations. Economist John Cavanagh and Frederick Clairmonte have calculated that just over a quarter of the world's production comes from General Motors, Mitsubishi, Shell, Philip Morris and 200 of the other largest firms. These firms are the primary beneficiaries of the world's rapidly growing trade. As they compete with one another to capture global markets, their primary mode of reducing costs has been through cutting jobs, wages and benefits. Between 1979 and 1992, for example, the Fortune 500 largest firms in the U.S. cut 4.4 million workers from their payrolls globally to remain competitive and keep profits high.
 
Backed by conventional economists, large corporations have convinced most of the world's governments that they should maximize global competitiveness through freer trade. Corporate and government officials often theorize that free trade will be beneficial for workers, whose wages and benefits can rise as foreign markets expand for their goods and for consumers who can buy cheap foreign imports. Following this theory, new regional trade agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) are reducing barriers to trade and investment for firms. These free trade agreements offer firms global protection for their intellectual and property rights but there are currently no equivalent enforceable global standards to protect workers and the environment. Furthermore, as barriers to entering local markets are removed, large scale manufacturers edge small businesses and local cooperative enterprises out of the market. Local economies suffer when these firms' profits are channeled out of the country rather than being reinvested locally. According to World Bank figures, roughly half of the new foreign direct investment by global corporations in the South in 1992 quickly left those countries as profits.

As a result of these trends, the gap between the rich and the poor has increased dramatically in recent decades. Today, the richest 20% of the world's population has 60 times the income of the poorest 20%. The benefits of trade are similarly concentrated among the wealthiest segments of the world's population and only a handful of developing countries. For example, of the $102 billion in private investment that went to developing countries between 1970 and 1992, 72% went to only 10 countries. Most of those ten were the emerging markets such as China, Hong Kong Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Even in many countries that are currently experiencing high growth rates from expanded trade, the benefits of growth are not trickling down to the poor.

Another problem is that the bulk of exports from developing countries tends to be in primary product commodities, such as sugar, cocoa, coffee, etc., whose prices generally rise much more slowly than the prices of manufactured goods imports. This "terms of trade" decline was particularly sharp between 1985 and 1993 when the real prices of primary commodities fell 30%. This translates into losses of billions of dollars. Free trade agreements do little to enhance the trading positions and commodity prices of these poor countries. In many cases, the world market price for commodities such as coffee and cocoa falls below the cost of production, forcing farmers to sustain huge losses. Fair Trade organizations offer a crucial alternative by paying farmers a price that always covers at least production costs.

FAIR TRADE HAS NEVER BEEN MORE IMPORTANT. The business generated by Fair Trade Organizations in Europe and the U.S. now accounts for an estimated US$400 million, just .01 % of all global trade. Small as it may be, the rapidly growing alternative or fair trade movement is setting standards that could redefine world trade to include more social and environmental considerations. Fair traders believe that their system of trade, based on respect for workers' rights and the environment, if adopted by the big players in the global economy, can play a big part in reversing the growing inequities and environmental degradation that have accompanied the growth in world trade.

Hilary French, author of Costly Tradeoffs: Reconciling Trade and the Environment, reflects the views of many Fair Trade Organizations: "Trade is neither inherently good nor bad. But how it is conducted is a matter of great concern-and an unprecedented opportunity. Trade can either contribute to the process of sustainable development or undermine it. Given the rapidly accelerating destruction of the earth's natural resource base, there is no question what the choice must be."

For Fair Trade Organizations, the choice is simple. Whether trade is good for producers and consumers depends entirely on how the goods are made and how they are sold.

Fair Trade brings the benefits of trade into the hands of communities that need it most. It sets new social and environmental standards for international companies and demonstrates that trade can indeed be a vehicle for sustainable development. Today, a growing movement of workers, environmentalists, consumers, farmers and social movements worldwide is calling for a different framework for trade. They want a global trading system that promotes workers' rights, protects the environment and sustains the ability of local producers to meet community needs. Together, as consumers, they can make a huge difference by demanding significant changes in the ways goods are produced, and vote with their dollars for a more just and environmentally sound trading system.

This article was written by John Cavanagh, co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Original article appeared at http://www.fairtradefederation.com/ab_whyft.html
 
see link on The History of Fair Trade;

 http://coupons.answers.com/guide/14846269/The-History-of-Fair-Trade---Buying-and-Selling-of-Product.html

[kara j lincoln]

lets take a review of the blueprint for the treatment for HIV/AIDS;

http://www.pepfar.gov/documents/organization/201386.pdf

http://www.pepfar.gov/smart/index.htm

lets look at some history of some of negativity resulting;

http://tradejustice.net/?page=TPPObamaJune2012Promo