General Discussion

From this week's Dawlish Gazette (available if you live in Dawlish):

Fairtrade status continues

Dawlish has maintained its status as a Fairtrade Town.

The Fairtrade Foundation said Dawlish had gone "from strangth to strength" and it looked forward to more support from schools.

The committee is currently looking for new members. Anyone connected with the town's schools would be particularly welcomed.

The next meeting will be at the United Reform Church at 7pm on September 8.

For more information on Fairtrade in Dawlish visit wwwdawlishfairtradefriends.org.uk

Dawlish was first given the title in March last year, since when it has continued to meet the goals set by the Fairtrade Foundation.

They are to ensure the continued involvement of the town council, increase the number of shops, cafes, work places and community organisations using Fairtrade products, attract media coverage and maintain a committee which ensures continued commitment to Fairtrade Town status.

Joey,
Thanks for this and the link repeated here because of a missing .

www.dawlishfairtradefriends.org.uk

Thanks for spotting that Don. :-)

What is all this rubbish about fairtrade? who is it fair too? who are the biggest beneficiaries? Every where the men of the cloth touch down in Africa, it is a disaster.
Speak to some of the producers who got sucked into this not-so-fairtrade business and then speak to those that belong to other cooperatives.

Contractual arrangements are hard to understand for many in this country, when many are supposed to have had some sort of education, imagine what a contracual arrangement is for those with no or very little education?

Fairtrade is not what it appears to be, and I would suggest that those who think it is of benefit to the producers in the way it is claimed, had better start to dig deeper to find the real truth.

At a Dawlish Town Council meeting which was once taken over by fairtrade, not once were any figures mentioned as to how much better off the producers are who belong to the fairtrade cooperative.

It is my belief that fairtrade is a sort of charity where no one know's who are the real beneficiaries. We know what the supporters of fairtrade say, but they have great difficulty in producing figures to show who and by how much producers benefit from the increased premium which is applied to all fairtrade goods.

It sounds a good idea, and probaly would be if there was more trancparency into the way it is run and by whom.

Producers live in mud huts, where do the organizers live?

Viaduct,
Many years ago, I disapproved of Israel because of their treatment of the Palestinians and of South Africa because of South Africa. As a result I would not eat any of the oranges that you could get here. Until 1975, when Franco died, I would not eat marmalade made with oranges from fascist Spain.

I am uncomfortable knowing that almost everything that I need to live involves exploitation of some and the accumulation of wealth by others.

In buying homes, financial services and holidays, large commissions are taken by agents who frequently seem to do little for what they receive.

Taking all the above as a given, we live in an imperfect world. Surely it is no bad thing for people to try to make small steps towards improving it through choosing to make donations to charity or buying fairtrade products?
Don

Sorry,
In the post above I meant to say that I disapproved of South Africa because of Apartheid.

Don

Are you saying you are content to give to charity even though you are aware that charity organisations and collectors are siphoning off a percentage of these donations for themselves?

Dullish,
I apologise if what I was saying was unclear. I am not trying to persuade anyone as to what they should do on these issues. People are able to make up their own minds and any questions I pose are for readers to answer to themselves, not to me.

I am prompting Viaduct,yourself and others generally, to consider from a different perspective from that taken in some other posts:

a)Let us say that a large part of what we spend on petrol goes in tax and we object having the tax at all and even more to the amount of it.
Should we avoid buying petrol, which we need?

b)Let us say that some part of what we spend on a holiday goes in travel agent fees and we onject to that. Should we avoid buying the holiday, which is discretionary spending on something we want to do?

c)Let us say that some part of a donation or fairtrade purchase goes to a middleman of some sort rather than the people whom we want to help. Should we avoid giving in this way, which is again discretionary spending that we hope will do some good?

The word "content" never came close to my intent. I am not content any more than I am complacent. But I do what I decide to do, even if I am not always happy with all of the circumstances surrounding my doing it.