In 1994, I participated for the third time in what was called the “North American Alternative Trading Organizations” (NAATO) conference at Georgetown University in Washington DC . I was part of an international group of individuals working on the concept of certification, a system to ensure the adherance by companies to certain basic principles such as fair prices, respect for workers’ rights, care for the earth, the trade not charity concept, and encouraging consumer responsibility.

At the 1994 conference we formally decided to form the Fair Trade Federation. Being an outspoken Latin American in the crowd, I was asked to run for the first board of directors and was elected to be Vice-President. Then from 1995 to 1997 I worked for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s (IATP) Fair Trade program. Under this program, we created Peace Coffee and introduced the Transfair Fair Trade Label to the United States. The interim board of directors later hired business consultant Paul Rice, to do market research and develop a business plan for the new initiative. Paul was later hired as the Executive Director of the U.S. branch of Transfair, the fair trade labelling arm of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International. The rest is history as you can read on their website.

What prompted me to write about this issue was this morning’s report by Sea Stachura, a Minnesota Public Radio’s reporter. Sea reported on the “local fair trade certification system“. This is quite different than where the fair trade movement started, but it follows the same principles and purpose.

Fair trade has local, national and international implications with a direct impact on immigration into and within the U.S.. Back in my home country of Guatemala, thousands of farmers and workers have decided not to emmigrate to the U.S. because of new found economic opportunities through fair trade.

Immigration is also a rural/urban domestic issue inside the U.S. the loss of family farms and the growth of farm conglomerates has caused economic downturns and put the future of many rural communities at risk. Fair trade seems to be as much of a domestic as it is an international immigration tool with very positive promises.

Contrary to free trade agreements that drain local community resources, fair trade, brings opportunities home to many of these communities, creating a system that allows small businesses to sustain the production and distribution of those products that are best if produced and consumed locally such as fresh food items.

Fair trade is possible through consumer’s responsibility and involvemenet, and that is what has been growing rapidly since I came to the U.S. towards the end of 1992. As Chris Farrel of MPR’s Marketplace put it in Sea’s interview this morning when talking about fair trade certification “I think it’s also part of a much larger movement toward trying to express values with your money and appeal to consumers who want to express values with their money,” and that “people buying local fair trade labelled products may be the early adaptors of the next market development.”

How does it all connect.? Here in Northfield, I am working with “economically displaced families” from México who have ended up living in the U.S.. Some of these families I work with are interested in farming, and tapping the “responsible marketplace” will be one of the keys to their success, just as it is already for the farmer in Zephyr Valley that Sea Stachura wrote about.

On the larger picture, the possibilities for investors interested in fair trade look prommising, it is well documented that the organic food industry and the fair trade coffee within the coffee industry represent the fastest growing sectors in the United States.

Fair trade systems are sustainable because they not only look at the economic wellbeing of the families running the farms or small businesses, but the workers they hire, the environment and issues of local and regional sustainability and consumer demands for quality products. All of these, are key elements to a healthy national economy, these factors are part of the cost of a product, the question is when do we include them, at the front end when they are cheaper to deal with,? or later at a hundred fold the original price.

These same issues apply to conventional companies, but the conventional marketplace normally passed these costs on for consumers to pay later, go undetected by the public for years until they become costly environmental or health emergencies, or are left for future generations to deal with.

Conventional markets have generated demand for products associated with farming systems that cause soil erosion, pollution of underground and above ground water systems, and soil and air pollution that has rendered vast amonts of natural resources unusable, some so large they make the main news all the time such as the Golf of Mexico’s Dead Zone.

This is a special time to think about these issues as the 2007 Farm bill goes through the finish line and defines what will happen to the local farmer suppying our food, to my dreams and to many other’s to become farmers or to stay on their farms in Northfield, or to the food that our children will be fed at the school cafeteria. Fair trade is not only relevant, it is one of the few tools we can control as consumers.

Lack of convenient ways to act responsible is no longer an excuse, from energy production and conservation, to food production, to fair trade, we have choices everywhere.

I invite you to look at your own choices and change where you feel you need to, it can only lead to good things, a better economy and more wealth for our country.