Fair, but does anybody care?: Both on-campus and around town fair trade products are available, but face limited demand

By: Jessica Goldberg

Posted: 4/12/07

Six years ago there was a push for Syracuse University to start offering fair trade products in dining and snack facilities.

Today pots of fair trade coffee sit - all but ignored - next to the regular blend, said Brett Africk, SU's manager of Snack Operations.

Fair trade is a form of business that practices direct trade with farmers and artisans at a guaranteed minimum price, so workers and farmers earn livable wages, according to Transfair USA, a renowned fair trade company. In order to qualify for fair trade certification, farmers must follow strict guidelines of sustainable crop growing.

While organic foods represent increased environmental consciousness, fair trade is a movement that focuses more on social injustice. Buying fair trade does cost more money, but that is mainly because workers are better compensated.

Africk and his colleague Sue Bracy, assistant director of the Schine Dining Complex, painted a pitiful picture for fair trade on campus, however.

"The demand is very small," Africk said. "Fair trade coffee is offered at four different locations on campus, but normal coffee outsells it 10 to one." These locations are the Gallery Snack Bar, Warehouse Café, Olsten Family Café in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and the café in Slocum, which is currently closed.

"There is more of a push for organic food now," Bracy added. "There's not as much media" for fair trade.

The independent, student-run coffee shop on campus People's Place offers one blend of fair trade coffee. Co-manager Stephanie Bovaird described student response to the blend as fairly positive.

"People who know about fair trade usually get it," she said. "It's becoming more popular as people become more aware."

The People's Place's decision to offer fair trade coffee began because - as a non-profit - it can sell products the university doesn't support, Bovaird said. "We wanted to be able to promote things for farmers and small businesses," she added, "because we're a small business."

The People's Place has offered this coffee blend for about seven years, and while there has been talk of offering fair trade teas, Bovaird said there currently isn't enough space for more products.

Despite a lack of demand for fair trade products on SU's campus, there are several local businesses that sell a wide variety of fair trade products, ranging from coffee to jewelry. According to the staff at these stores, there is a steady influx of students who come to buy their products.

The Syracuse Real Food Co-op offers a wide variety of fair trade certified products in its store, located on the 600 block of Kensington Road in Syracuse. Bulk manager Marty Butts said a large number of students shop at the store.

"I don't know if shopping for fair trade brings students in as a specific reason," he said, "but their purchases of fair trade products are on par with non-students."

Real Food Co-op has been in business since 1986, and most of its fair trade products come from Transfair and Oxfam, which Butts said are two of the best-known and longest running fair trade companies.

Starting in early 2007, domestic fair trade products have become available and are now available at the co-op. The only three domestic products currently on the market are pecans, cranberries and tamari almonds.

Domestic fair trade is in part a response to an incident in Florida exposed in early 2003. Tomato farmers there were found to being using slave labor in the production of their goods, which they were, in turn, selling to the fast-food chain Taco Bell.

"The Florida incident was a really well-known one that people were able to rally against," Butts said. "Domestic fair trade is a way to fight back against that."

Maurine Mctyre-Watts, founder of Fair World Marketplace, opened her store in September 2004 on the 4400 block of East Genesee Street in Syracuse to sell products that were produced in good practice. Mctyre-Watts has lived and worked overseas for many years during the course of her life and has witnessed poverty in other countries in her travels.

"My visit to India in 2003 gave me the emphasis to decide to do something a little more about alleviating poverty," she said.

Her store almost exclusively sells fair trade products. It boasts a large variety of products, including sculptures, linens, chocolate, coffee, jewelry, handbags and musical instruments. These products come from all across the world - El Salvador, Ethiopia and Peru, to name a few.

Mctyre-Watts said quite a few SU students shop there, but more students from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry patron her establishment. The most popular items students tend to buy are handbags, jewelry and coffee, she added.

Christiana Kaiser, founder of Bluetree Studios, has a similar view. Kaiser sells a style of baskets called bolga baskets and other crafted goods made by Ghanaian artisans. She started her business with the intention of bringing business to the weavers she befriending during a 2003 internship in Ghana.

Kaiser emphasized that she is not selling the idea of fair trade; however, she is just selling the baskets and paying the artisans fair prices for them. "The emphasis is on partnership with the artists," she said.

"What I'm selling is the baskets," she said, "and I'm providing the service of bringing them to the U.S. But I'm not selling the idea that I'm helping other people, that African people are helpless and can't help themselves."