Co-operative News - Dominican Republic

Reinsurance: ICMIF 2013 Annual LARG Meeting Registration Now Open

AlisonGrant — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 15:36:11 +0000

The ICMIF 2013 Annual LARG (Latin American Reinsurance Group) Meeting will take place this year in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic from Wednesday 26 to Friday 28 June hosted by Cooperativa Nacional de Seguros, Coop-Seguros Inc.

The meeting brings LARG members together to discuss issues such as underwriting, claims, microinsurance, strategic planning and catastrophe reinsurance as well as providing the opportunity to discuss reinsurance treaty renewals for 2014 with their reinsurers and reinsurance broker Willis Re.

Information on the 2013 seminar can be found on the LARG event information page which includes details of the agenda, location, hotel and social activities.

The agenda will include presentations by top level speakers; most of whom will be representatives from the group’s reinsurers. During the meeting delegates will also be reviewing their strategy to monitor the group’s direction for the next three years.

The LARG is a unique group of ICMIF members and was formed in order to allow the members to purchase reinsurance collectively. One of the key additional benefits of being a member of the LARG group is access to technical and reinsurance training which is provided for the members by the group’s coordinator, Martha Julia de Marroquín. In the report below Martha Julia gives an account of the aims of the training and talks about achievements from the 2012 programme.

Artículo CAPACITACIÓN AL GRUPO LATINOAMERICANO DE REASEGURO

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The ICMIFTV video below was produced after the 2012 meeting in Honduras and includes interviews with a number of LARG members. The video will provide valuable information to existing and potential LARG members and also to reinsurers who may be interested in working with the group.

Co-operative stores across the UK embrace Fairtrade products

AnthonyMurray — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 10:11:54 +0000

As the UK celebrates Fairtrade Fortnight, Brad Hill, Fairtrade Strategy Manager for the Co-operative Group, discusses the society's pioneering approach to Fairtrade and how easy it is for customers to switch to the ethical choice . . .

Having led the market since the inception of the Fairtrade Mark, the Co-operative Group’s response to the increasing competition was to raise the bar. As an important and integral part of our ambitious Ethical Plan, we have declared that if a product can be labelled as Fairtrade, then it will be.

By the end of this year, we are aiming for 90 per cent of that target to be achieved. We are also deepening our commitment to producers in our own co-operative way – through a unique range of support projects and initiatives.

We were delighted to welcome many of our Fairtrade producers to the fantastic Co-operatives United event in Manchester last year. This was a great opportunity for thousands of visitors to speak to the producers directly to hear how Fairtrade impacts on their communities, as well as learning more about The Co-operative’s additional beyond Fairtrade projects.

Sales of Fairtrade bananas more than doubled by the end of 2012 thanks to our 100 per cent Fairtrade switch last February. The conversion made huge impact on our ‘if it can be Fairtrade it will be’ target, and benefited thousands of producers. At the time of the switch, we aimed for at least half of our fruit to be grown by smallholder farmers, which is now the case. We have also funded two beyond Fairtrade projects; in Panama at the COOBANA banana co-operative and in the Dominican Republic where a banana training school is being set up to train the next generation of smallholder banana farmers.

When we switched all our tea to Fairtrade in 2008, we began scoping out an ambitious plan to bring together thousands of smallholder tea farmers in Kenya to give them Fairtrade market access by becoming a co-op, with the intention of packing some of their product into our 99 Tea brand. The new Fintea co-op started trading this time last year, when we committed to 10 per cent of the 99 blend being sourced from the co-operative.

A few weeks ago, we announced the launch of 99 Gold – a stronger, more premium blend – with half the tea sourced from the now 15,000-strong Fintea co-operative. The project has also enabled diversification, with additional income now being generated through new crops.

Our chocolate bar range was the very first “100 per cent conversion” to Fairtrade, and 2012 was the tenth anniversary of the switch. Our chocolate bars remain the only 100 per cent Fairtrade own-brand range and continue to support three producer co-operatives in Peru, Dominican Republic and Ghana through ongoing additional payments over and above the Fairtrade premium.

While the Ghanaian Kuapa Kokoo’s premium is paid into a ‘producer support and development fund’ which addresses strategic matters, Conacado in the Dominican Republic have social projects such as schooling as priorities. In Peru, Acopagro co-operative funds are going towards a much-needed reforestation project. The range continues to be refreshed – look out for the launch of several exciting new varieties in the coming months!

This year marks the tenth anniversary since we became the first and only supermarket to switch our entire own-brand coffee range to Fairtrade. This important milestone is marked by two exciting new beyond Fairtrade projects, supporting two of the co-operatives who featured in our campaigning Coffee Report a decade ago.

In Colombia, over 1,000 smallholder coffee producers of the Aguadas co-operative will be supported to improve their coffee storage and drying facilities, thus improving the quality and productivity of coffee. The project will also help farmers to improve environmental practices, including composting waste, to help increase productivity by providing nutrients to coffee plants.

In Guatemala, 12 primary coffee co-operatives, that are members of the coffee co-operative union Fedecocagua, will benefit from capacity building and training, in particular helping them to achieve Fairtrade certification. The project will also support three other groups of coffee producers to form into co-operatives, achieve Fairtrade certification and become member co-operatives of Fedecocagua, helping them to own more of the value chain. In total, 5,000 smallholder coffee producers are set to benefit.

In 2006, The Co-operative became the first retailer to introduce Fairtrade wines from Argentina, when the La Riojana co-operative became the first winery to receive Fairtrade certification. Since receiving this certification, La Riojana’s members and workers, together with their families and local communities, have started to see the direct benefits of Fairtrade and the additional premiums that have been generated by the sales of The Co-operative’s wines.

One such local community which has seen these benefits is the small isolated village of Tilimuqui which is found nestled in the Famatina Valley, in the north west province of La Rioja.

A new secondary school, inaugurated in May 2010, is the first Fairtrade-funded secondary school ever built in Argentina and was also largely funded by sales of The Co-operative’s own-brand Fairtrade Argentine range. Before the new school, Tilimuqui only offered children schooling up to the age of 14 and many children did not go on to study further due to the difficulties and cost of going to secondary schools outside the village. The school has increased its number of pupils year by year, starting with just 33 pupils in the first intake in March 2010. Once this modern agri-technical school is running at full capacity, it is expected to have a total of 300 pupils, and will see its first class graduate as agricultural technicians in 2015.

Thanks to a beyond Fairtrade project in Chile at the Apicoop co-operative, production of Fairtrade blueberries was increased significantly this season due to new packing and improved quality control. This meant that in November 2012, we were able to announce that we would become the very first supermarket to switch all winter blueberries to Fairtrade.

Our ambition to move more categories exclusively into Fairtrade continues into this year with the recent announcement that all our roses now will be sourced only from Kenya under Fairtrade terms. This is across the range of all standard single stems and bunches of roses, and will provide additional benefits to the workers at farms in the Lake Naivasha and Kericho regions of the country.

With Fairtrade Fortnight now upon us, we clearly have a lot to shout about!

In store, our market-leading “20 per cent off” promotional offer will be not be missed, with plenty of point-of-sale material, radio mentions, merchandising displays and messages around the till areas. Around stores, leaflet drops and press activity will drive awareness and bring in customers.

As we celebrate ten years of Fairtrade coffee, we literally went "further for Fairtrade” by commissioning the world’s only coffee-fuelled car! Powered by the waste from coffee production, the car, nicknamed the Bean Machine, will be touring our stores nationwide throughout the Fortnight and aiming to reach a total distance of 1,600 miles.

We are also delighted to welcome two members of the Guatemalan Fedecocagua co-operative, who will be attending a number of membership-hosted events throughout the UK during the two week celebration. Look out for details of the tour, and find out when these producers will be at an event near you to hear first-hand about all things Fairtrade and our unique beyond Fairtrade project in Guatemala.

Latin American co-op becomes 10th largest cocoa exporter

Emily Barker — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 10:10:40 +0000

A Fairtrade co-op that started as a development project in 1988, has now become the tenth largest cocoa exporter in the world. CONACADO now provides Fairtrade cocoa products to brands such as Green & Black’s, Lush Cosmetics, Ben & Jerry’s and Café Direct.

CONACADO is an association of nearly 10,000 farmers that sell Fairtrade and organic cocoa. Before the formation of CONACADO, cocoa production in the tropical region was fragmented and of low quality.

The cocoa farmers were selling low quality unfermented beans largely to the United States and four families held a powerful grip on the local market.

CONACADO cocoa now makes up 25 percent of national production and sells between 6,500 and 13,300 metric tonnes of cocoa annually. It has become one of the top three cocoa exporters in the Dominican Republic.

Grown under the shade of avocado, citrus, and banana trees, nearly half of CONACADO cocoa is sold on the Fairtrade market. As a result, the co-operative receives an extra payment, the Fairtrade Premium, totaling US $200,000 each year in addition to the set price of cocoa. Decisions on how to invest the Premium in business and community development are agreed upon by all members, who are organized into nine ‘blocks’ composed of 182 small farmer associations throughout the country.

One farmer, Mariano Manzuela, a member of the CONACADO co-operative in the Dominican Republic, has been able to send four of his children to secondary school on scholarships from the Fairtrade Premium.

Members have also used the Premium to build five new fermentation centres and eight drying centres. They have also purchased trucks to transport the beans, repaired the roads and built warehouses for storage. All of these improvements lead to increased productivity and higher quality beans.

CONACADO work with chocolate producers Green & Blacks. Dominic Lowe, Managing Director of Green & Black’s, said: “We have committed US $500,000 in local initiatives to improve quality and availability of our products, but we wanted to do more to support our farmers.

“This switch is a key milestone in our relationship with the farmers that are so fundamental in the making of the best tasting, premium, organic, and now Fairtrade, chocolate you can buy.”

CONACADO now sells more than 70 percent of its cocoa to higher paying niche markets in Europe, such as organic, biodynamic and Fairtrade.

According to Isidro de la Rosa, Executive Director of CONACADO, access to these markets has made all the difference in the growth of the co-operative: "In our country there was no tradition of fermenting cocoa. With the additional Fairtrade income we were able to implement a fermentation program to improve the quality and to convert our production to certified organic. These days competition for small-scale farmers organizations has become very aggressive, so only niche markets allow us to survive."

Guess We’ll Have to Save the World Ourselves

Rodney North — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 01:00:43 +0000

This is the second post from Tom Hanlon-Wilde sent to us from Quito, Ecuador where he is attending the Second Annual Meeting of the Small Farmer Symbol.

Small-scale Farmers Besieged by High Temperatures and Less Precipitation as Consumers Fail to Avoid Climate-Changing Habits

Our bike-riding and bottle-recycling efforts are not nearly offsetting our jet-setting vacations and highway commuting, and the farmers in tropical and sub-tropical regions are paying the price. At the Fifth General Assembly of the Coordinating Body for Latin American and Caribbean Small-Scale Producers, three dozen leaders of co-operatives from throughout the hemisphere met in Quito, Ecuador, to review the coming climate changes and the changes farmers will have to take to ameliorate the destructive effects of the actions of their customers.

Martha Yvette Aguilar reviewed the most current comparative scientific studies, concluding that the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are on pace to reach 440-570 ppm by 2020, the result of which will be an increase of 3.5 degree centigrade in the growing regions of the member co-operatives by 2050. Already, in the past 100 years, the average temperature in the coffee growing regions of southern Mexico and Guatemala and the Dominican Republic is up by 2 degrees C and in Nicaragua and El Salvador by 1 degree. The farmers of CONACADO in the Dominican Republic are seeing increases in defoliation and aborted flowering of their cacao trees due to the higher temperatures and more frequent droughts. The coffee farmer partners in Las Yungas of Bolivia will likely face the opposite threat – too much rain which promotes coffee rust and molds and leads to erosion. The effects will be varied within countries: farmers in coastal Peru (CEPICAFE) will likely see increased precipitation while farmers in Cusco and Puno will see droughts and resultant forest fires. The disappearance of glaciers from Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia will drastically change the availability of water for household and agricultural use and is projected to directly cause deaths to remote populations.

Ricardo Bustos of CRIC and Yvette Aguilar discuss carbon credit opportunities for coffee farmers

Ricardo Bustos of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, Colombia, explained that 830 member farmers can utilize a different variety of coffee to maintain yields in the face of the rust and wilting of coffee due to climate change, but that the higher intensity crop is a disruption to the cultural practices that indigenous communities have developed in the growing of traditional foods, forcing members to chose between maintaining yields for their income and maintaining culture for their communities. Carlos Ruiz Silva of APBOSMAM, a co-operative of 290 farmers in northern Peru, noted that their members are seeing more rapid maturing of bananas and shorter growing times for rice, which cause crop losses and require changes in farming techniques. Fewer cool nights (which is needed for the coffee plants) and more frequent high-intensity rains (which increase erosion and cause landslides and floods) have been observed. The threat of landslides due to high-intensity rains will require re-location and diversification of growing areas. The decline in yields of food crops for home (a 2 degree C increase in temperatures causes a 15% decline in corn yields in equatorial growing regions) will increase dependence on off-farm income and a change in the types of crops grown for home use. Growers are beginning to alter the spacing of coffee or cocoa trees and changing the spacing and types of trees inter-cropped with coffee or cocoa to deal with changes in temperature and precipitation.

Tom Hanlon-Wilde with Carlos Ruiz Silva, Vice President of ABOSMAM

Evidence of climate change was right outside our window – the glacier on Cotopaxi Mountain is 40% smaller than it was in the mid-1970s. Hope for meaningful action by consumers filled the room, but more evident was the steely resolve to take matters into their own hands and ready member-farmers for the coming climate changes.

Coop-Seguros in Top 50 Employers in the Dominican Republic

AlisonGrant — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:13:18 +0000

ICMIF member, Coop-Seguros, has recently been ranked number nine in the Top 50 Best Employers to Work For in the Dominican Republic business publication Revista Mercado. They were ranked ninth in the “300 Employees and Under” category. The organisation was praised in particular for its management training and succession planning whereby managers are trained to be able to step in and substitute for one another. Coop-Seguros are the only cooperative to appear in the rankings.

This was the sixth time that the survey was carried out by the business publication Revista Mercado. The survey is carried out online and is completed by employees of organisations throughout the Dominican Republic.

General Manager, Arlene Sarbaris, says “This ranking is a demonstration of the quality of our team here and the dedication of our managers in making our organisation one of national importance, not just as a cooperative organisation but for the Dominican Republic’s insurance market. Our Learning and Development and Succession plans are a key contributor to our recent success….We will continue to recruit and train the very best people so that we can continue to give excellent service to the best sector – the cooperative sector!”

Arlene recently contributed an article on the cooperative business model to the Revista Mercado publication entitled Together we are stronger () (pdf, 335.43 kB). In it Arlene talks about how cooperation brings social and democratic inclusion to people and allows them to take charge of their own destiny.

Coop-Seguros mission is to provide all types of insurance services to the social organisations, cooperatives and not for profit groups in the Dominican Republic; as well as serving the general public with these services and providing excellent levels of service to their members.

Banana Producers from the Dominican Republic Say No to Plantations!

Rodney North — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 00:28:22 +0000

“Perhaps the current changes are seen as positive by consumers and the Fair Trade world, but they will exclude once and for all small farmers if we do not make the right decisions; if this happens, once again we will stop local community development and negatively impact good environmental practices: the market will win but the world will lose a unique system able to create change working with small organized farmers.”

The following letter was sent to the North American Fair Trade Council by Marike de Pena, Vice President of the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Small Producer Organizations (CLAC). Marike, who is also the Director of BANELINO, a small banana farmer co-op in the Dominican Republic, wrote the Council to express her views about Fair Trade USA’s controversial new certification scheme which allows plantations to become Fair Trade certified under their new initiative, Fair Trade For All.

June 10, 2012

Dear Friends:

This is a time of many changes in Fair Trade that affect the survival and future of small farmers.

Large scale private owned plantations are harmful to small producer organizations (SPO) in many ways, as they generate unfair competition.

First, by affecting sustainable prices (they have lower costs, more access to information, finance, technology, logistics, etc.). As an example we can mention bananas, the minimum Fair Trade price which was settled on is NOT sustainable for small farmers and their organizations because it was a compromise between what a plantation needs, a SPO needs, and the market; the outcome favors markets and plantations.
Unfair competition is also the outcome of a lack of commitment in the industry: it is a lot easier, cheaper, faster and safer to buy from the big estates. Then, you have unfair competition in raising standards: when you have plantations in a crop, just to make it look more ethical, Fair Trade raises the labor standards and the consumer and media assume that these standards apply also to SPOs since we all use labor in agriculture.In bananas, they check us more on labor, threatening small farmers as well as wealthy employers, without caring any more about their miserable and difficult lives, affected by low prices, lower volumes (because of low prices they can invest less in production and productivity falls), high costs and climate change damages. Labor standards, environmental standards, and high conditions on food safety and infrastructure, all as a result of and to justify the existence of plantations in the system, are pushing small farmers out of Fair Trade.

The last tendency will be the Unions fighting for workers, as they are considered to be the poorest of the poorest; nobody cares anymore about small farmers, whose incomes are far below workers’ income, with no protection through any laws, no social security, no pension funds, no protection against climate change and no guarantee of markets. Plantations in Fair Trade did not enter to solve poor working conditions, rather, they entered to serve the market faster and cheaper. They create unfair competition in Fair Trade, and will change the direction of Fair Trade to a charity movement and not a movement that supports farmers through empowerment and progress thanks to stable markets and sustainable prices; a movement that enables farmers to create progress through their own efforts and work.

As the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Small Producers (CLAC), it is our mission and responsibility to represent the small farmer; sometimes the system even questions our commitment and considers us to not be inclusive. Perhaps the current changes are seen as positive by consumers and the Fair Trade world, but they will exclude once and for all small farmers if we do not make the right decisions; if this happens, once again we will stop local community development and negatively impact good environmental practices: the market will win but the world will lose a unique system able to create change working with small organized farmers.

Regards,

Marike de Pena, Vice-President CLAC

Fair Trade USA and Partners Deliver Record Impact to Farmers in 2011

Fair Trade USA — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:34:44 +0000

Fair Trade USA and Partners Deliver Record Impact to Farmers in 2011

Community Development Premiums Empower and Improve Fair Trade Farming Communities; Impact Driven by Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration

Fair Trade USA, a non-profit organization and the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States, recently released its 2011 Almanac, an annual publication which provides detailed information on the supply and impact of Fair Trade Certified products. According to the Almanac, in 2011 farmers and farm workers earned almost $22 million in community development premiums, up over 50 percent from 2010. Farmers and workers have democratically elected to invest these premiums in projects which improve their communities, improve the health of their environment and improve the quality of their products.

Community Development Premiums Improve Lives
Fair Trade community development premiums enabled projects in areas like healthcare, education, environmental conservation, community infrastructure and quality and productivity for over 1 million farmers in 70 countries around the world.

FEDECARES, a coffee cooperative in the Dominican Republic, believes that the additional income from community development premiums has been critical to their survival and success. Their members have invested in projects ranging from community healthcare to road improvement and have created scholarship funds for community members to attend college. Cooperative member Juan Arias said that “if it wasn’t for Fair Trade, we would probably not exist; we would not be able to remain coffee growers, working the land we love.”

Similar impact can be seen on Fair Trade flower estates across the globe. On large farms where the workers do not own land, Fair Trade premiums are crucial to worker empowerment and community improvement. After democratically electing a Fair Trade committee, workers at the Hoja Verde flower farm in Ecuador decided which projects to invest in based on their most pressing needs. “Through the sale of our roses, we have earned enough Fair Trade community development premiums to invest in adult education classes, micro-financing for home appliances, education for our children, pediatric care and more,” said farm worker Rocio Giron, referring to the $1.3 million in premiums earned by flower farm workers since 2007.

Now, Fair Trade USA’s new Farm Workers Standard allows coffee farm workers to receive the benefits of Fair Trade for the first time in the history of the model. Fazenda Nossa Senhora de Fatima, a 100 percent organic coffee farm in Brazil, has become the first ever Fair Trade Certified coffee estate. They achieved certification by complying with rigorous Fair Trade standards that benefit both their workers and the environment. The 110 farm workers there have democratically elected to spend their Fair Trade community development premiums on eye and dental care; many workers just received their very first pair of eye glasses. “Another important change has been the farmers taking on increased roles in the operations of the farm,” said Luir Fontes, farm worker representative from Fazenda Nossa Senhora de Fatima. “Farmers now see the opportunity to have a direct influence on the success of the farm. The transparency, increased funds, and ownership of work have changed what was previously seen as a 200-hectare farm with 100 workers into 100 farmers with their own 2-hectare projects.”

Collaboration Drives Impact
It’s taken many stakeholders, working across the supply chain, to deliver this growth in sales and impact. An example of this effort is the recent Intercambio Peru 2012 event. Fair Trade USA helped bring together 44 producer organizations, along with importers, traders, NGO’s and social lenders, for a multi-day event in Peru. The goal of the event was to increase transparency and collaboration in the supply chain, exchange ideas, and create a productive space to share news and experiences. During this time, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc signed contracts for millions of pounds of coffee for the upcoming harvest, which will result in approximately $3.15 million in Fair Trade premiums back to farmers.

Social lenders like Root Capital, Rabobank, Shared Interest and responsAbility were also present, each signing contracts with numerous Latin American producer groups to provide access to affordable credit.

“Fair Trade USA’s mission is to alleviate poverty through trade,” said Mary Jo Cook, Chief Impact Officer at Fair Trade USA. “The only way we can achieve this mission is by working with others to maximize our efforts. Through increased collaboration with U.S. businesses, NGO’s, social lenders, conscious consumers and other industry leaders, we helped deliver more impact to farmers and workers in 2011 than ever before.”

The Co-operative — stepping out for Fairtrade and beyond

AnthonyMurray — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 11:07:42 +0000

Last year, we announced details of our rejuvenated Fairtrade strategy. Having led the agenda since the inception of the Fairtrade Mark, our response to the increasing competition was to raise the bar.

As an important and integral part of our ambitious Ethical Plan, we declared that if a product could be labelled as Fairtrade, then it would be.

By the end of 2013, we are aiming for 90 per cent of that target to be achieved. We also explained how we would support this in our own co-operative way — through a unique range of projects and initiatives that benefit producers.

Our single largest step in that process is the conversion of all our bananas to Fairtrade. This move, that will coincide with this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight, puts us on track for meeting our Ethical Plan target.

During the planning process, we have been able to create a sourcing model that means all our Fairtrade bananas will be sourced from co-operatives, and that just under half of them will be sourced from smallholder farmers on an ongoing basis. With no retail price increase and our own investment supporting 20 per cent off retail prices during Fairtrade Fortnight, this commitment is not equalled anywhere else.

In terms of project support, we have been working with Panamanian banana co-operative COOBANA, in which around £260k has been invested in supporting capacity development and in social projects such as clean water and sanitation to worker communities.

One of the many interviewees in the film is COOBANA founder member, Demetrio Jimenez Gonzalez, who will be with us during Fairtrade Fortnight as part of a nationwide tour arranged by our membership team. Visit www.co-operative.coop/2012/Fairtrade to see if Demetrio is visiting your area.

Our chocolate bar range was the very first “100 per cent conversion” to Fairtrade. It seems like only yesterday that we made the groundbreaking move and began to campaign for the major national brands to make at least one of their products Fairtrade.

In fact it was a decade ago, and we celebrate our 10th anniversary with the news that that Mars’ Maltesers will become the third of the biggest three confectionery brands to switch to Fairtrade — showing just how far Fairtrade has come. Our chocolate bars remain the only 100 per cent Fairtrade own-brand range and, following a range relaunch last year, are supporting co-operatives in Peru, Dominican Republic and Ghana through ongoing additional payments over and above the Fairtrade premium.

At Amankwatia in Ghana, children of the Kuapa Kokoo community are enjoying a school built from such support and the children of Paulo Colorao in Dominican Republic are just moving into their rebuilt premises. See for yourself the difference our support and that of Fairtrade is making in The Dominican Republic.

Of all the product categories, tea best epitomises our co-operative difference in driving benefits beyond Fairtrade. Having become the first retailer to switch all own-brand hot drinks to Fairtrade in 2008, we set to work on an ambitious co-operative development project, bringing 11,200 small holder farmers in Kenya to Fairtrade certification and into our supply chain. The very first of the smallholder tea is being packed into The Co-operative “99” tea products just in time for Fairtrade Fortnight.

The Chairman of the new Fintea Growers co-operative, Joseph Cheruiyot, will tour events with our membership team across the UK to promote the project during Fairtrade Fortnight. Visit www.co-operative.coop/2012/Fairtrade to see if he is visiting an event near you.

Our long-standing support for wine growing communities in South Africa and Argentina received a significant boost with our Fairtrade wine relaunch late last year, which saw our market-leading range take on an eye-catching new look with some exciting new varieties added.

In another leading step, we also introduced the UK’s first Fairtrade wine carrier to help our customers carry their purchases home. Made at a new sewing room at a mill in the village of Bauria, an economically underdeveloped farming area near Kolkata, India, profits will be used to support local charitable community-based projects.

Last year, the charismatic Chino Hernandez from the Apicoop honey co-operative in Chile paid us a visit to celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight, and to promote the Fairtrade blueberries that were being sold exclusively by Co-operative stores in the UK.

During Chino’s visit, we discussed how to increase the capacity of the Apicoop and went on to invest £85k of community funding towards helping Apicoop increase their output and pack their own fruit.

This has, in turn, allowed our stores to access more blueberries and increase our Fairtrade offer through the winter season to 25 per cent of all the berries we sell. This year, we are aiming for ALL our winter fruit to become Fairtrade as part of our wider Fairtrade strategic targets.

Fairtrade Fortnight 2012 is upon us, and we have a lot to shout about. Gorillas and giant bananas will be roaming our stores to launch the event and create a buzz, capturing the attention of customers and local media.

In store, our market leading “20 per cent off” promotional offer will be not be missed, with plenty of point-of-sale material, radio mentions, merchandising displays and messages around the till areas. Online activity includes collaboration with the Fairtrade Foundation in a chocolate giveaway. Customers can visit step.fairtrade.org.uk to register the steps they take for Fairtrade, and our own website has also been revamped and ramped up to support Fairtrade like never before.

Naturally, our membership colleagues will be pulling out all the stops. The producer tours, new resources, and events far and wide will provide plenty of opportunity for co-operators to take their own “steps” for Fairtrade and beyond.

Some Insights Into How Strong Are Labor Rights in Fair Trade

Jeff Goldman — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:02:28 +0000

On September 21, FTRN produced Webinar 116: How Strong Are Labor Rights in Fair Trade? The 3 panelists were Judy Gearhart, Executive Director, International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF); Wil Flinterman, Senior Advisor – Workers Rights and Trade Union Relations, Fairtrade International (FI); Helen Nicolás, Certification Officer, Savid Dominicana (banana company in the Dominican Republic). You can download the 50-min recording, or register for upcoming webinars, at FTRN webinars.

Economy Sandwich

Joe Marraffino — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 14:37:02 +0000

Explore the new economy with the Sustainable Economies Law Center! How are people putting the lively back in livelihood? Sharing, cooperation, DIY, and the local economy are all wonderful, but they operate in some interesting legal grey areas. Learn more: www.SustainableEconomiesLawCenter.org