The market for fair trade products also grew strongly in 2018. But how did the fair trade concept actually become so big? The book World Improvers provides a fascinating insight.
Getting some fair trade coconut oil or 'honest' chocolate from the supermarket is quite common these days. In fact, the number of fair trade products continues to grow. There are now even entire Fairtrade Municipalities. Fortunately, because by giving farmers in developing countries fair prices, they can also benefit from the flourishing world economy.
But why did fair trade become so fashionable? Where does the idea come from? If you are also curious about that, this book by historian Peter van Dam is a must. At the University of Amsterdam he conducts research into the social involvement of citizens and the organizational forms that this can take.
Origin unknown
Incidentally, it is not the case that Van Dam comes up with a ready-made answer to the question of who is responsible for the development of the idea of fair trade. Exploring that question soon proved impossible. After all, where does a history of fair trade begin? When Aristotle thought about fair prices? At the call from English anti-slavery activists to boycott sugar from slave plantations? Or at the fair clothing label of the National Consumers League in the US at the beginning of the twentieth century?
The fact that Van Dam cannot point to a 'big bang' for the emergence of fair trade is not at all disturbing, however. By zooming in on the many different activists and movements that managed to put fair trade on the agenda, World Improvers shows that behind a seemingly innocent label such as fair trade there are quite different, and sometimes conflicting, views.
Mirror
Take the attitudes towards cane sugar in the 1960s. Produced in the southern hemisphere, cane sugar quickly became a fair trade product. Some local action groups mainly tried to sell as much of it as possible in order to generate more income for farmers in developing countries. The SOS Foundation, the current Fairtrade Original, joined in with the sale of wood carvings, coffee and tea, among other things.
Other activists, however, did not go far enough, as can be read in World Improvers. They advocated radically different power relations in the global economy. Such as the student associations, economics professors, trade unions and other organizations that organized the (failed) sugar cane campaign of 1968.
The aim of this was to force the EU to produce less beet sugar, so that farmers from developing countries could also sell their sugar in Europe. To this end, they mobilized as many citizens as possible, for example through signature campaigns and demonstrations. When the campaign failed and more general reforms failed to materialize on the world market, some began to question whether there was still any point in selling fair trade products. After all, such ties strengthened dependence on the west – or were too much of a drop in the ocean.
The world shop in Amstelveen also struggled with questions about sugar. Wasn't everyone who worked for 'big capital' actually a victim of capitalism – including farmers here? The Wereldwinkel therefore started to sell cane and beet sugar on the street as an educational tool, with signs for and against each product. That did not have much effect, Van Dam discovered from notes from the world shop from that time:visitors continued to buy cane sugar casually.
Mirror
However, World Improvers does not only zoom in on how organizations in the Netherlands promote fair trade. Van Dam also shows how some of those organizations have developed over time. This provides an intimate insight into the world of fair trade activism. The history of world shops, points of sale run by volunteers where you can buy all kinds of products from developing countries at fair prices, is particularly fascinating. These often functioned, and still function today, as hubs for all kinds of 'progressive' activism, from environmental protection to women's emancipation.
Only… precisely by embracing those ideas, employees of world shops also had to regularly scratch their head. For example, most members of world shops enthusiastically supported the wave of women's emancipation in the 1970s. But where were the women in their own boards? The arrival of more and more migrants from outside Europe also caused reflections. They were not at all pleased with the often paternalistic and exotic imagination of the average person in the south. That could and had to be more equal.
Forerunner
In passing, Van Dam makes another discovery. Thanks to the world shop, the first of which was established in the late 1960s, the Netherlands played a pioneering role in spreading the fair trade concept in Europe. The world shop phenomenon is relatively unique. Anyone who wishes can set up a world shop with fair trade products, with or without the help of the National Association of World Shops or Wereldwinkels Nederland. You don't have to commit to a specific development organization.
In addition, they often functioned as mini-communities. This led to considerable foreign interest in this idea, after which similar initiatives were started elsewhere in Europe, for example in Germany. This in turn stimulated the distribution of both fair trade products and the fair trade philosophy.
Present
Today the situation is different again. Under the influence of neo-liberalism, fair trade products have increasingly become part of the 'normal' economy. In addition to the greater inclusion of fair trade products in the range of supermarkets, there are also more and more companies that specialize in a certain fair trade product, such as fair clothing or slavery-free chocolate. The idea that companies should operate in a socially responsible manner also plays a role, according to Van Dam.
The question is, of course, whether this incorporation of fair trade products into ordinary commercial trading structures is the final destination. After all, if World Improvers teaches us anything, it is that the zeitgeist significantly influences how we view fair trade.
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Personal
All in all, World Improvers will hit you with quite a few details and facts. Nevertheless, the book is still very readable. This has everything to do with the many short sections in the book, in which Van Dam explains how he experienced his research. For example, he tells comically how some of his initial assumptions turned out to be completely wrong, he shares his doubts about the authenticity of certain historical sources and talks about his emotions during certain interviews.
Those smooth, personal glimpses are more than a nice break from the main text. You get the feeling that you are looking directly over Van Dam's shoulder during his research. Sometimes you even imagine yourself in a historical archive or having a cup of tea with one of the now grey, former protagonists of the fair trade movement in the Netherlands.