Nativities on Sale

We are at the height of the season and to celebrate we are putting a selection of nativities on sale this week.

This hand-carved nativity set is made in Peru and is a simple and elegant addition to your holiday. The regular price is $55, and we are offering at the great price of $35.

These metal nativities are made in Haiti from recycled oil drums. The 3-panel hinged screen nativity is on sale for $95.50. The manger sculpture is being offered at a great savings for $55.50

Ceramics on Special

Starting December 3rd, we're adding a few ceramic items to our holiday specials. These make a great addition to your home, or a great gift.


These leaf-pattern ceramics are handmade in Indonesia. This platter and serving bowl are beautiful individually and even better as a matching set. Our sale price is $36 for each of them.


This ornately decorated condiment dish is crafted in Vietnam, where there is a long tradition of ceramics. The handpainted dragonfly dish is on sale for $26.

Let The Shopping Season Begin

With the coming of Thanksgiving, the holidays are in full swing. We've decorated the store and brought in a lot of exciting new items to make it even easier for you to support Fair Trade and find the perfect gifts.

These handmade jute gift bags are made in Calcutta by a group of former prostitutes, now working with dignity to create these festive jute bags. It’s a quick, easy way to wrap gifts and make a difference at the same time. Our special price is $3.99.

To make the countdown to Christmas a little sweeter, we are putting our Divine Chocolate Advent Calenders on sale for $5.95.

It's also time to get the christmas cards in the mail, so this week we are adding these beautiful hand-cut paper cards to our list of specials. These cards are made in Thailand through the Hands of Hope Project, which supports villagers living with HIV/AIDS. Choose from a wide selection and get 3 for $9.

New Specials for Nov. 19th

It's time to start decorating for the season! With that in mind, we are starting off this weeks' round of specials with a great deal on these jute paper stars. Handmade in Bangladesh, these beautiful stars add a unique touch to your season. We are offering them for the special price of $8.00!

These wool throws come in two patterns and make for a warm and versatile accessory. They are handmade in Nepal and are normally $44.00. We are putting them on special for $26.00.

This orange-blossom soap is made by Enterprising Kitchen, a chicago group that is devoted to providing development and support services for women who are working towards self-sufficiency. The soap comes in a beautiful bark paper box, a great gift at the special price of $10.95

Choose Dignity and Freedom

Your purchase of a Fair World Marketplace tote helps provide a sustainable income to over 50 former prostitutes in Calcutta, breaking the cycle of poverty for these women and their daughters.

To continue in the spirit of their mission locally, we will donate 20% of your tote purchase to Vera House.

Located in Syracuse, Vera House works to support those affected by domestic and sexual violence to live safe, self-sufficient lives, to empower women and children and to promote a culture of equality and respect in relationships. For more on their mission, please visit http://www.verahouse.org/ .

Help support FWM's developing projects

This great calendar is full of beautiful photographs from our recent development trips. Proceeds from this calendar will help to support our efforts to create Fair Trade, income-generating projects for groups in Kigoma, Tanzania and Guatemala.

A 2009 calendar is a great way to give yourself and others a daily reminder of the mission behind Fair Trade. People all over the world are empowered to earn a sustainable livelihood with dignity and hope for themselves and their communities.

Thank you for supporting Fair Trade!

More Holiday Specials starting Nov 12th

Our list of Holiday Specials continues to grow. With the holiday season right around the corner, now is the perfect time to start shopping for a Fair Trade gift.

Get into the holiday spirit with these adorable, hand-painted elf ornaments from El Salvador. Our special price is only $8.00, for the pair!

This handmade climbing Santa doll is a festive decoration that comes from the Philippines. The original price is $11.00 and we're marking it down all the way to $5.25.

With hat and scarf weather upon us, we thought now would be a great time to put these hand-knitted items on sale. These alapca/acrylic blend scarves and hats are made in Peru and feature matching designs, the hat is on sale for $9.99 and the scarf is on sale for $17.99.

New Specials for November 5th

We’re adding to our list of holidays specials again this week. All sale items will be offered until they are gone. Please keep checking back, as we plan to add specials weekly throughout the holiday season.

This set of butterfly jewelry is made in India and is our biggest special yet. Peridot and Citrine butterflies make for beautiful sterling silver earrings and bracelet. The earrings were originally $32.00 and are on special for $10.00. The bracelet was originally $38.00 and is on special for $14.00.

To help keep your kids’ heads warm this winter, we’re adding these fun knit caps to our special list. These caps are hand-knitted in Bolivia and come in several varieties including, reindeer, elephant, penguin and more. The original price is $19.99 and we are taking 25% off, so it’s $14.95.

Educate your children about the importance of Fair Trade with this colorful story book. We are putting it to the special price of $6.50.

Holiday Specials at Fair World Marketplace

Join us in Celebrating the Holidays with fairly traded, handmade gifts from around the world.
Beginning October 29th, we will be running eight weeks of Holiday Specials. Each week we will have new specials offered until the items are gone, so be sure to visit us online or in the store and see what’s new.

To start the season off we have some great specials for this week:

These holiday ornaments make a perfect addition for your tree this year, or a great gift.
This stunning red ornament is made from hand-blown glass in India. Our regular price is $6.95, and our special is $3.99

This frosted white glass ornament also comes to us from India. It is regularly $12.00, and is on special for $7.50.





This elegant, hand-painted vase is crafted in Vietnam. Our regular price is $22.50, our holiday special is $15.99.

Equal Exchange--Fair Trade Pioneer

Since opening, Fair World Marketplace has proudly sold Equal Exchange coffee and chocolate. Now CSRWire has profiled the company:

For more than twenty years Equal Exchange has been a pioneer in redefining corporate structure and in raising awareness of fair trade practices with farmers around the world. As one of oldest thriving cooperatives in America, they are deeply respected not only for the way they run their own business, but for being a company that has long lived its mission: to create a new model of bringing the best from farms to the consumers in a manner that is direct, fair and sustainable to all.

For the rest of the story, see Worker-Owned Cooperative Thrives as Fair Trade Pioneer.

Update on Haitian Artisans

Hurricane Gustav created havoc and a great deal of damage in Haiti, but no partner offices, homes or lives were lost. Our recycled drum art orders will be slightly delayed, but will still arrive by early October, barring further interference from hurricanes.

FWM in Guatemala!

We are proud to announce FWM’s new partnership with several indigenous women’s cooperatives in Guatemala in cooperation with Mission Guatemala, an outgrowth of the Kateri Tekakwitha Fund, a scholarship fund for indigenous women in Guatemala, founded by Kay Sweeny. So far the Kateri fund has helped 40 indigenous women obtain an education, 16 more are current scholarship recipients and 6 others have internships. You too can help sponsor a student!

Our goal is to help create new products, increase their market and help promote their self development within Guatemala.

Custom order products from these very talented women. Ask us how.

Fair Trade library online

The Fair Trade Institute has put a treasure-trove of publications online at http://www.fairtrade-institute.org. This author-managed collection provides a diverse forum for exchanging cutting-edge fair trade ideas and practices.

Clothing Retailers and Indian Farmers

Business Standard, Aug. 9, 2008: ... Many big global retail chains as well as local facilitating producer companies in India are signing agreements with cotton and basmati rice farmers on ethical business practices under the Fair Trade Labelling Organisation (FLO).

FLO International is a non-profit, multi-stakeholder association involving 23 organisations, traders and external experts. The association sets standards for fair trade and supports fair trade certified producers by providing them market opportunities. Farmer groups which tie-up with producer companies and retailers under FLO norms get the FLO equivalent of a minimum support price .

Indian cotton and basmati companies are in the forefront of the fair trade movement in India. A producer company, Agrocell, has tied up with Indian cotton farmers groups for 22,000 acres. Agrocell Managing Director Hansmukh Patel says the farmers can opt for buyers suggested by Agrocell or sell to the highest bidder.

Patel adds: “Our role ends with ensuring that farmers get an assured price from retailers like Marks & Spencer and Gap. We also provide support in ensuring irrigation and a fair trade premium, which takes care of education and health needs of the land-owning farmers as well as the wage workers.”

FLO conditions stipulate that there will be no genetically modified crop, no child labour, and workers must get minimum wages. ...

Fair Trade known to 20% of Americans

Paul Rice, co-founder of TransFair USA, estimates that 20% of Americans know about fair trade and about 10% actively support it by buying fair trade products. That leaves a lot of potential for growing the American fair trade movement!

FWM Prize Winners!

To everybody who came in during our Super Summer Sale, thanks for making it a great event!

Congratulations to Joanne, Lorry Crinnin, and Mary Teneyck who won T-shirts, and Linda Palmisano who won a Putamayo CD !

New Instruments

Fair World Marketplace is unpacking orders of new products from around the world, including new instruments from Peru, via Inter-American Trading

Summer Sale!

Fair Trade and Big Retail

Business Week chronicles the debate over the increased marketing of fair-trade products by mass-market chains such as WalMart and Sam's Club:

... When Sam's started offering fair-trade tea, bananas, and roses earlier this year, it seemed like a huge win for the movement, which had already seen sales of fair-trade coffee grow tenfold from 2001 to 2006, to $730 million. "The idea of bringing high-quality items to our members at a great value that were produced in an environmentally and socially responsible way was just too compelling to pass up," says Gregg Spragg, executive vice-president for merchandising at Sam's Club, who replied to questions via e-mail.

But all the fair-trade cut flowers and a large quantity of tea, bananas, and sugar imported to the U.S. come from big plantations in places such as Ecuador and Colombia. "The large companies want to continue working with mass producers like plantations rather than going the tougher route, which is identifying small farmers and buying from them," says Carmen K. Iezzi, executive director of the Fair Trade Federation, a trade group of companies that say they are 100% committed to fair trade.

... Iezzi and others aim much of their criticism at TransFair USA, which is expanding fair-trade certification at a frenetic pace. They say that to keep up the pace of expansion, the organization is taking shortcuts that compromise the original concept. "When large, conventional plantations get fair-trade certified for improving practices, we consider that 'fair-trade lite,' " says Rink Dickinson, president and co-founder of Equal Exchange, a West Bridgewater (Mass.) company that is committed to buying only from farmer-run cooperatives. "There may be reforms, but it is a kindler, gentler version of the same old thing and falls short of what some of us are advocating." Rice, who started TransFair in 1999, disagrees. "The notion that the standards have been lowered is ill-informed," he says. "Our objective is to help the poor, whether they own a plot of land or not."

Part of the problem Rice and Wal-Mart face is the difficulty of applying the same standards of equity and economics to different types of crops. While half of the global production of coffee comes from small farms, it takes a larger operation to compete in bananas, tea, cut flowers, or sugar. "The disadvantaged majority would be locked out of the market if I were to look for only small farms for bananas and tea," says Rice.

Fighting the Banana Wars

In Fighting the Banana Wars and Other Fairtrade Battles, Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation in the UK Harriet Lamb relives the dramatic campaigns and successes that have brought Fairtrade to this point, outlines the hurdles still to be overcome and shows what we can all do to help achieve global Fairtrade.

Meet Jorge Ramirez, manager of El Guabo, a banana co-operative in southern Ecuador, which has helped a small community of farmers to survive in the face of exploitation by multinationals; Amos Wiltshire, National Fairtrade Co-ordinator for Dominica, where the introduction of new Fairtrade orders from Tesco enabled a community blighted by crime, violence and gangs to regain order and self-respect; Bruce Crowther a local vet and campaigner who turned Garstang, Lancashire into the first Fairtrade Town in the UK; Ganga, a worker in an organic cotton farmer’s group in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, who thanks to Fairtrade has finally managed to buy a set of weighing scales to ensure the community is no longer cheated by money-lenders.

Click here for more.

Brooklyn Grade 6 Class proposes Chocolate Boycott

A letter to The Hants Journal:

We the Grade 6 students of Brooklyn District School would like to propose a boycott against a number of international companies that produce chocolate. Those companies have been buying cocoa beans from farmers who produce their cocoa by child slave labour. They also have been giving the farmers an unfair price for their cocoa.

In countries like Ghana and Cote D’ivoire, children work on cocoa farms as slaves and are never paid for their work. The children are kidnapped in countries like Mali. The children are promised money for their work but they never get it.

The companies have not been paying the farmers they buy the cocoa beans from a fair price. The farmers get about $0.01 for every $0.60 chocolate bar the companies sell. The farmers have to use child slaves to grow and produce the cocoa beans because they can’t afford to pay workers.

We are asking you to help us boycott these companies so that they start to buy fair trade cocoa beans. Some 84 million pounds of cocoa beans are produced by fair trade cooperative farmers, but only 1 million pounds were sold at fair trade prices. Farmers deserve to sell all of the cocoa beans at a fair price.

From the Grade 6 students of Brooklyn District School

Wales: a "fair trade nation"

The BBC reports:

Wales has been declared the world's first fair trade nation by campaigners, for the progress it has made increasing the availability of such goods.

A number of targets were set in 2006 by the Wales Fair Trade Forum (WFTF) in consultation with independent experts to reach the fair trade nation goal.

These included having fair trade groups in 55% of towns and every county working towards fair trade status.

... The campaign in Wales has seen the WFTF, which has received funding from the assembly government, encourage schools, businesses and other organisations to switch to fair trade products.

It also obtained a commitment from the assembly government to use fair trade goods.

More than 1,000 volunteers have helped to persuade 58 towns, 380 schools and groups in all 22 Welsh counties to commit to learning about fair trade and use fair trade products.

An independent panel of fair trade experts from Britain and Europe reviewed all of the evidence collated and congratulated Wales on its progress.

The WFTF is now planning to implement the second phase of its campaign which will focus on increasing buying and using fair trade products.

Sharing the Wealth

Today on OneWorld.net, Sharon Cullars reports that Fair Trade is "sharing the wealth."

Fair Trade 2.0

Tim Davies imagines what the next level of Fair Trade might look like. He wonders if the technologies of connectivity could be fine-tuned to provide consumers with (1) more producers' stories, (2) a sight of the whole supply chain for a particular product, (3) better information to guide decision making, and (4) closer connections with the producers themselves.

Fair Trade is Working

The Independent reports on the maturing of the fair trade movement:

... What was just two decades ago a prophetic alternative espoused by sandal-wearing beardies now has global sales worth more than £1.6bn. Its projects today touch the lives of seven million people, for the better, across the developing world.

This is an extraordinary story, and a good news one. ...

Majority of People Lack Access to Markets

BIPPR writes:

The World Resources Institute has published a report on the 4 billion people who live on or below the poverty line - at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). They dwell not so much on the poverty, but on the fact that the BOP population segments are, for the most part, not integrated into the global market economy and do not benefit from it.

They write there is no proper market economy, either local or global, they have access to. Without access to larger trade markets they are disadvantaged and likely to remain in poverty. In local markets they are often exploited by their employers, or through middlemen. They do not have access to the basic economic resources, that we have in the West, for example, bank accounts, communication media, information libraries.

As a result - and this is surprising - they are likely to pay more for basic goods and services then wealthier people, either in cash or in the effort they must extend to obtain them.

Jocolat!

New at Fair World Marketplace: Jocolat bars from Larabar!


"JŎCALAT is Fair Trade Certified™ chocolate in its purest form. Harmonizing with fruits and nuts, each flavor contains no more than seven simple ingredients. Deliciously rich.  All Organic. No added sugars. Free of dairy, soy and gluten. A healthy indulgence you can feel good about eating."

We carry four flavors: chocolate, chocolate mint, chocolate almond and chocolate orange. Come try them all!

World Fair Trade Day & Mother’s Day
May 10th, 10-6

Join Us and Make a Statement!

One 12 oz bag Fair Trade coffee &
a Mother’s Day silk flower pin
given away every hour!

Fair trade coffee and other samples
Festivities throughout the day!

The Miniature Earth

Recession and Fair Trade

The Capital Times of Madison (WI) reports that local start-up businesses focusing on Fair Trade are experiencing a downturn with the current recession--just like other businesses.

That story rings true in Syracuse, too. Fair World Marketplace has felt the effect--last year from eight months of road construction in front of our store, followed by a retail downturn in December continuing so far this year. Like folks in Madison, an e-mail campaign by our supporters in February rallied sales briefly.

We've cut advertising to save costs and slowed reorders to keep our payroll intact. We hope our customers will understand if new products appear more slowly while the recession lasts. We know that many of you are feeling the pinch too!

Just Coffee documentary

Just Coffee documents the damage of collapsing coffee prices from 1998-2005 on coffee producers. It describes the different kind of social certifications placed on coffee products, including the Fair Trade label. It also surveys challenges for both producers and consumers in complying with and finding fair trade and other certified coffees.

Though coffee prices, along with other commodities, spiked in March, they have fallen again. Coffee prices have never returned to 1998 levels.

Google Earth Fair Trade

Autonomieproject points out that many fair trade co-ops have been entered on Google Earth. In Google Earth, click on "Fair Trade Certified" under the Global Awareness subset, then click on the icons that appear on the globe to see information about individual co-ops.

Our Partners

New on the FWM website is a page listing some of our partners who develop and wholesale fair trade products from various parts of the world. It also indicates which of their products we carry.

In this space, we'll occasionally profile some of these organizations and the artisans they work with. Today I want to introduce two:

Ganesh Himel Trading markets the products of artisans in Nepal. They "import directly from small cottage industries in Nepal, including development projects working to improve the lives of Tibetan refugees and women. Our goal has always been to support work that enhances people's lives and traditions. We work directly with the producers as a team, expanding each others' talents and ideas." FWM carries their jewelry, placemats, bags, and hand-made paper products (note-books, cards, etc.).

Hope for Women offers products made exclusively by women in India. FWM carries their pressed flower note and greeting cards. Hope for Women reports that "Each Fair Trade greeting card is made of handmade "tree-free" paper faced with real pressed wild flowers and native plantings from the foothills of the Himalayas."

Fair Trade Federation Conference

Maurine is at the 2008 Fair Trade Federation Conference in Austin, TX this week-end. Fair World Marketplace is proud to be have been accepted last year as a member of the Fair Trade Federation, which certifies businesses as adhering to fair trade principles and practices.

Certification Guide

Confused by all the different socially-conscious certifications on coffee products? Imagined-Community has a very convenient and informative guide.

Teaching Resources

The Fair Trader, from Catholic Relief Services, has posted online teaching modules for bringing fair trade principles into secondary school classrooms, as well as links to educational resources from other organizations as well.

Impact of Open-Market Price Fluxuations

The Guardian reports that soaring commodity prices for coffee, tea and cocoa have led some to question the long-term viability of the fair trade model.

Coffee, tea and cocoa prices have soared to multi-year highs in recent months as turmoil in stock markets has sent investors in search of safe places to put their cash.

This situation has fueled criticisms of the fair trade model from free market-oriented institutes, such as the Cato Institute in Washington and the Adam Smith Institute in London.

The economic impact of rising prices is at this point mostly hypothetical, however, since fair trade commerce has grown through 2007 at double-digit rates (see previous post).

Ian Bretman,deputy director of the London-based Fairtrade Foundation, admitted that the current boom might jeopardise the system.

But he added that the open market exaggerated price volatility and would not affect the fair trade model which offered a lot more to impoverished farmers. "Because there had been such a long period of low commodity prices, people have tended to assume that that is the only thing that fair trade does, but it does a lot more," he said.

He said the system offered other benefits such as an efficient supply chain between farms and ports and advance payments in time of need, which farmers should see as a long-term benefit.

We might add that price increases due to shifting funds out of falling stock markets seem particularly liable to sudden reversals.

And, of course, fair trade products include a considerably more diverse range of items than just coffee, tea and chocolate, as the inventory at Fair World Marketplace shows.

Fair Trade Growth

From AmOnline.com:

A new report by independent market analyst Datamonitor, “The Next Step in the ethical consumer revolution,” reveals Fair Trade sales across Europe, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Japan have experienced double digit growth since 2002.

Fair Trade Producers Talk

Rachel Dixon in The Guardian interviewed three fair trade producers--of coffee in Costa Rica, tea in Kenya, and cotton in Mali. Also on the Guardian site is a slide show of pictures from a banana growing cooperative in Ecuador.

Fair trade & women's rights

Father Shay Cullen does a good job in the New York Times of summarizing how fair trade effects women in particular. A good read for International Women's Day

Kenyan Tea Producer tauts Fair Trade

Julius Ethang'atha, representing smale-scale tea producers in Kenya, talked to the BBC while visiting Scotland during Fairtrade Fortnight. He described fair trade's effects:

We identified the most disadvantaged tea-producing factory in my area and established a pilot programme to help them work to produce tea for the Fair Trade market.

Since then, the social impact of Fair Trade in that first factory has been enormous.

Schools have been built and existing schools improved.

Dispensaries, water systems, roads, school bursaries for the poorest in society and feeding centres for those with HIV/Aids have been put in place.

All these projects have been funded by the social premium paid through Fair Trade, all of them democratically decided upon by the producers themselves.

Welcome to Our Blog!

We are launching this new blog feature to provide our supporters with regular news about Fair World Marketplace and fair trade news, both local and international. Watch this space, subscribe to our RSS feed, or book-mark us in your "favorites" list to keep informed on fair trade issues and opportunities!

International Women's Day

Join us in celebrating
The International Women’s Day
2008 theme of
“Investing in Women & Girls:  Financing for Gender Equality”
Fair trade provides hope & financial empowerment for disadvantaged women and 
support VERA HOUSE at the same time
  March 15-31st

• Every purchase between March 15-31st enters you into a drawing for a sterling silver bracelet
• Buy a Vera House “white ribbon campaign” bracelet for $1, & we will add a .50c premium to it
• Bring paper products for Vera House and receive a 10% off coupon for use on your next purchase
• Buy a Fair World Marketplace jute bag made by former prostitutes in Calcutta &
•   Fair World Marketplace will donate 30% to VERA HOUSE

Help empower women!
Enjoy coffee and hot cocoa while you shop

International Women's Day 2008
UN Conferences and Events
WHO | International Women's Day 2008
International Women's Day 2008
WomenWatch: International Women's Day