FTF 2005 Notes: Pedro Haslam, Plenary Session I
Plenary Session I (10/1 at 10am): Pedro Haslam, CECOCAFEN Organization, Honduras
- There are approximately 125,000 coffee farmers in Honduras.
- Communities that don?t sell their coffee through fair trade networks are suffering because the family units break up when members are forced to seek work in the cities.
- Fair trade allows self-sufficiency.
- Fair trade farmers invest back into their communities and experience solidarity (not charity) with consumers.
- We do have the power to transform the market.
It was good to hear throughout the conference from producers and people working directly with producers. The firsthand witness offered was incredibly valuable--we need to find more ways to tell these stories.
Haslam said fair trade allows self-sufficiency which, in a way, it does because it empowers people with discretionary income that they can put toward food, education, home improvements, etc. Fair trade is very different in this sense from charity. However, there is also a dependence on people in the U.S., Europe and Canada to make principled purchasing choices. There is a fragile beauty in this symbiotic interconnectedness that is not present when buying choices are made based on cost alone, when the consumer becomes the end of the line instead of one participant in a circle of good.