By buying here, they eat there.

The international commercial performance

Little producers cultivate their soil, create work and working force at a good price, harvest products and sometimes even start the first transformation, although importer countries monopolize, by the means of multinational firms and with immense profits, the fruit of this labour. This unequal trade compels Third-world countries to turn towards international help and loan to be able to provide for the basic needs of their populations.
This vicious cycle creates a dependence of the producer countries on the consumer countries, a ratio of force which does not allow, with short or long-term, the sustainable development of the communities in the south.

The equitable commercial performance

Equitable trade aims at balancing trade between the small producers of the South and the consumers of North. Why? Because these exchanges are made to the disadvantage of raw material producers.

For a product to be considered as "fair commerce", it must be produced within fair social conditions and a worthy work, be paid at a price which allows permanence of a concrete production’s project and rule out the intermediaries from the distribution process. In the manufacturing process there mustn’t be any exploitation, children’s labour, nor racial, sex or other discrimination.

The producers sell with cooperatives. There is a guaranteed minimum. Even if the market of the stock exchange collapses, the producer always earns the same.

The cooperative redistributes the money to build schools and medical centres.

Here the advertising budget almost doesn’t exist (in any event advertisement is dealt with by rich countries); therefore very few people know what equitable trade is.

Of course the selling price is a little higher, but by buying products from equitable trade we really help and support fairer exchanges between Southern and Northern countries.

Ana Barbier, Ane Fernandez