H Oxfam Education - Scoilnet · 2016-07-20 · beans for chocolate, rice, pineapples, prawns and...

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Slide 1

‘Farmers, Businesses and Shoppers-

who wins and who loses in the world’s food

market?’

Oxfam Assembly: ‘Farmers, Shoppers and Businesses- who wins

and who loses in the world’s food market?’

Photo Credit: Vegetable market in Bara Garon, India. Tom

Prietrasik/ Oxfam

Slide 2

2

The global food system brings food from all

over the world to our tables.

2

We live in an increasingly globalised world- this means the

world is now very interlinked. Modern communications like

phones and e-mail make it easy to communicate almost

instantly with people all over the world. Travel- planes, trains

and ships has made it easy for many people to visit other

countries and continents. Food is also a major link.

Trade- buying and selling things happens everywhere. The

process of trade links the lives of everyone on the planet.

Goods and services are exchanged in small, local markets and

on a larger scale, in the world market.

Many of the foods we enjoy everyday such as bananas, cocoa

beans for chocolate, rice, pineapples, prawns and sweetcorn

are grown in other countries.

The global food system brings food from all over the world to

our local shops and supermarkets and eventually ends up on

our plates. In the UK we rely on many countries to provide us

with the food we need.

Photo Credit: Traders and shoppers crowd Lambaro, the largest

traditional market after the tsunami in Banda Aceh. There is

fish, meat, fruit and vegetables. Jim Holmes/ Oxfam



Slide 3

World trade is not fair. Many people

do not earn a fair price for their goods.

So long gone are the days where farmers grew food, took it to

market and then negotiated the price with their customers

directly.

Now food follows a chain from producer to traders and

processers to food companies to the retailers we all know – (i.e.

supermarkets). And there aren’t many of these – just 500

control 70% of choice. This means that these 500 companies

are very powerful to control the world food markets, driving up

their own profits, keeping prices low for consumers – all by

driving down the profits of producers.

For small farmers and labourers with little land and few

resources this means one thing this means one thing – a lack of

power to control their businesses – a lack of power to control

the price they get for their produce, a lack of choice of buyer

when selling their produce.

In other words people lose out as they are not paid a fair price

for their goods. And if world food prices go down for raw

products, farmers loose out even more.

Slide 4

4

What does this mean for small scale

resource poor farmers?

4

Lots of the ‘producers’ represented in the previous diagram are

large scal, well resourced big businesses living in rich countries,

who benefit from government subsidies, sell on a large scale

and have enough resources to withstand shocks when the price

paid for crops goes down.

However a significant proportion of the world’s food are grown

by small scale farmers. Small scale farmers are people who earn

a living by growing food, but have only a small piece of land to

farm. As this kind of farming is labour intensive, and they have

few resources, small scale farmers work very long hours to

produce a crop which they sell.

For some of the world’s poorest people who already spend

around 80% of their incomes on food, they simply cannot

afford to be at the mercy of food price market fluctuations. For

small scale farmers, getting a good price for their crops can

mean the difference between having food to eat, money to buy

medicines and school fees.

Photo Credit: Emelina Dominguez, 42, watering her brocolli at

COMUCAPs collective vegetable garden, Mescalito, Marcala, La

Paz. Gilvan Barreto/ Oxfam



Slide 5

What can you do?

We all enjoy getting a bargain at the supermarket, but is our

desire for cheap food contributing to the problems faced by the

worlds’ growers?

Would you feel comfortable buying coffee, or sugar or any other

food if you knew that the people who grew it did not get a fair

price for their labour and were struggling even to eat?

If you want to make sure that the farmer who grew the food

you bought was paid fairly for their hard work is there anything

that you can do? (i.e. see if the students can name fairtrade as a

way of exercising their consumer power to ensure farmers get a

fair deal.)

Photo Credit: Truck carrying bags of salt to be sold at a market

in Harar, Ethiopia. Crispin Hughes/ Oxfam

Slide 6

Look out for products carrying

the Fairtrade logo

That’s right – fairtrade can make the world of difference to the

poorest farmers. Does anyone want to have a go at explaining

what they thing fair trade means?

Fair Trade is a global scheme which started to help guarantee a

better deal for farmers struggling to earn enough money from

their crops in some of the world’s poorest countries.

This is the fair trade logo and it is applied to any food which has

been produced by growers who have been paid fairly for the

work they have done producing the crop.

Photo Credit: Kalibeshe District, Northern Dominica. Bus Shelter

built and painted with the community FT premium of Kalibeshe

FT Group. Rosy Wade/ Oxfam



Slide 7

7

Fair trade aims to ensure all people are paid

a fair price for their goods and services so

they can enjoy a life free from poverty

7

Fairtrade has helped many farmers all over the world get a

better deal- Fair trade aims to make sure people are paid a fair

price for their goods and services so they can enjoy a good life-

so they are not living in poverty- struggling to eat enjoy

everyday and being unable to send their children to school.

Fairtrade traders must always pay farmers a fair price, even if

the global prices for products such as coffee or sugar have

dropped.

It also means that the trader will pay an amount on top of the

price of the goods, to be invested in social and environmental

initiatives – this is called the ‘fairtrade premium’ and is spent on

typically invested in education and healthcare, farm

improvements to increase yield and quality, or processing

facilities to increase income.

Photo Credit: Leyla Kayere, 76, selling her tomatoes. Malawi.

Abbie Trayler-Smith

Slide 8

Fair Trade helps lots of small scale farmers

get a better deal for the crops they grow

Fair Trade has helped banana farmers like Balene. Balene lives

in the Windward Islands, in the Caribbean. Fairtrade has helped

her to work together with other local farmers as a cooperative

to demand international companies pay small scale farmers like

her a higher, and fairer wage for the work she does. This helps

her and her family to have enough food to eat, send her

children to school and also have some savings in the event of a

poor harvest, ill health or a hurricane.

Coffee farmers in Honduras like Marta have also benefited from

the Fair Trade scheme. Joining a fairtrade coffee cooperative

has helped Marta gain a higher price for her crop, again new

skills via training and gain access to new markets. This protects

Marta from losing out due to unexpected fluctuations in the

world coffee price.

Photo Credit: Balene Frederick Fairtrade Banana Farmer in the

Carib Territories on Dominica. Rosy Wade/ Oxfam

Photo Credit: San Juancito: Coffee farmer Marta Alicia Zepeda

picking coffee cherries. Annie Bungeroth/ Oxfam



Slide 9

9

Fairtrade is just one step towards a fairer

world food system.

9

Fairtrade also shows that trade can be a means out of

poverty if the conditions are right. Seven million

disadvantaged producers, workers and their families are

benefiting from Fairtrade, but millions more still remain at

the mercy of unfair food sytem.

The huge growth of the Fairtrade movement is sending a

clear message. Consumers want to see producers in

developing countries receive a fair deal. But consumers

can do even more than buying Fairtrade products to get

this message out – we also need to campaign for

governments to get behind a fairer world food system for

everyone.

Photo Credit: The Phon family work farm their rice paddy

in Kompong Thom, central Cambodia. Abbie Trayler-

Smith/Oxfam

Photo Credit: Razia laying out chillies to dry in the family

compound, Char Atra, Bangladesh. Shehab Uddin/ DRIK/

Oxfam GB

Photo Credit: Ibrahim Doua clearing a fire break in

Kouggou, Niger. Glenn Edwards/ Oxfam

Slide 10

10

What can you do?

10

Fair Trade has made lots of progress to improve the deal

of farmers all over the world, but there is still a long way to

go. There are many more global issues that need to be

tackled to improve the lives of disadvantaged farmers

such as unfair trade rules, food price rises, lack of

investment by governments is small scale farmers, climate

change and land grabs.

Fair trade encourages farmers to work together as

cooperatives to gain more power in the global food

system, so imagine what you could do if you all worked

together to help remind world leaders of these big

problems and what we can do to make sure everyone in

the world has enough to eat and is paid a far wage.

H Oxfam Education - Scoilnet · 2016-07-20 · beans for chocolate, rice, pineapples, prawns and...

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Transcript of H Oxfam Education - Scoilnet · 2016-07-20 · beans for chocolate, rice, pineapples, prawns and...