Fairtrade, Climate and You

Fairtrade Fortnight 2021 highlights the growing challenges that climate change brings to farmers and workers in the communities Fairtrade works with. These people, mainly in the global south, have done the least to contribute to climate change but are disproportionately affected. Climate change is one of their biggest challenges. Those in climate vulnerable countries are already seeing its impacts from droughts and crop disease to floods, heatwaves and shrinking harvests. Low prices for their crops mean that they are struggling to fight back. With the emergence of the global COVID pandemic, the challenges that farmers face now are bigger than ever.
 
Our global trading system is balanced in favour of the powerful few.Trapped in this system, farmers already struggle to meet their immediate needs. More than ever, they need a fair price for their crops and their hard work. Fairtrade is hosting an online festival bringing together schools, universities, businesses, supporters, campaigners and farmers from across the world to choose the world they want.
 
HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED?
* Go to the Fairtrade website https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/ or by clicking this link. There are so many activities for all age groups.
* Stoke South is holding a Circuit Fairtrade Coffee Morning on Saturday 6 March at 10.30am on Zoom. To join go to https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4775422768 or just follow this link.
* If you attend with a mug of Fairtrade coffee to drink and a bar of Fairtrade chocolate to munch you would have already helped. Use social media resources to spread the word online and add more voices to the fight.
 
HOW DOES FAIRTRADE SUPPORT FARMERS IN THE CLIMATE CRISIS?
Fairtrade is about social, economic and environmental justice. A root cause of the inability to adapt to and mitigate climate change is poverty. A living income provides farmers with a decent standard of living – enough to cover all their cocoa farming costs and enough to cover their basic human rights, like a nutritious diet, children’s education and healthcare. Only when they have met these basic needs can they start to meet the challenges of our changing climate.
 
The Fairtrade Foundation has set out to drive long-term structural change in the cocoa industry. But we know this will take years rather than a Fairtrade Fortnight or two. Their fight will continue.