Fair Trade's experience in Lebanon with producers and rural women cooperatives

As Safir newspaper published a report on the significant of the Fair Trade certification, its standards as well as the extent of its fairness and its impact on small producers.  The report notes that, similarly with bio products, FT products do not target the general public but rather the well to do in urban areas especially those interested in supporting the rural poor as well as buying and consuming their traditional products and that is according to Kanj Hamadeh, an economic agriculture instructor.

The report summarises the history of FT and the fact that the concept emerged as a result of social disparities between developed and developing countries as well as between rural and urban areas.  The concept arose from the global trend of economic liberalisation which resulted in major gaps and in the concentration of profit making amongst large international food companies.  FT products are identified by their trademark label which certify that the producer has met the required international FT standards including to various health and environmental standards, and social standards such as development of local producers, mitigating the role of intermediaries, working with small groups f producers, respecting the rights of producers and workers, exchanging long term contracts to ensure continuity of the production cycle.

The FT concept materialised in Lebanon some seven years ago with the foundation of FT Lebanon association which works with 550 producers in South Lebanon, Lebanon and Akkar and helps them to get the FT certification and market their products in Lebanon and abroad.  The Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action has also recently launched an initiative to support the traditional know how and build the capacity of some 600 women producers with the support of the ENPI program of the European Union.
The director of FT Lebanon, Benoit Berger, considers that their mission is to change the lives of poor rural communities in Lebanon.  However, CRTD.A's programmes director, Omar Traboulsi, is more skeptical about the effectiveness of this approach.  He notes that CRTD.A works with rural women cooperatives for more than a decade and is now about to take this work to a next level through investigating the possibilities of opening new external markets for rural women cooperatives especially since conventional marketing channels have proven to be limited.  Traboulsi added that although FT rules do not necessarily challenge unfair trade agreements, they may however allow small breaches in market access.

The report includes a few illustrations of the experience of FT in Lebanon namely the Coteaux d’Heliopolis cooperative which according to FTL is securing higher profits to farmers whilst allowing the exporting company to make a 20% profit for its exporting services.  FTL president Philippe Adaime indicates that FT does not abolish the role of intermediaries entirely but rather replaces it with a more charitable intermediary.  To be noted that the head of the cooperative Samy Rahme and one of its members Walid Habchi were unaware of the profits made by the exporting company which violates the principle of transparency imposed by FTL.  The report also highlights the experience of Claude Mhanna, a member of the rural women cooperative in Ferzol and who makes LBP 170000 per month.  She says that what she does is more of a hobby rather than a serious job since she does not enjoy any form of social security or any form of work insurance.  According to the author of the report, the Ferzol cooperative does not generate enough income to secure a decent life for its members as the case of other cooperatives and its work remain limited despite the fact that it receives support and training from international organisations.

The author concludes by saying that, according to her, rural women cooperatives do not provide a solution to women's empowerment and do not provide profit to women and do not address the problem of poverty.  She adds that although FT pretends to respect the rights of farmers, however, it does not respect the rights of workers since for instance the landholder who owns 100 dunums in the Coteaux d’Heliopolis cooperative earns USD 40,000 per annum whereas the Syrian farm worker who works his land earns no more than 10 dollars a day and 2 dollars if the worker in question is a woman.
Source: Al-Safir 23 December 2013