In order to benefit mankind, over 75 years ago, organic agriculture started in Europe with the aim of creating sustainable agriculture, the basis for healthy plants and animals and a healthy environment.
Standards for processing and labelling were defined as well as the criteria for Social Justice within agriculture and the exclusion of Genetic Engineering. Recognising that at the same time, it is not consistent with organic agriculture to treat nature and animals as friends but to violate the rights of farm workers, small farmers or to exploit producers.
The Fair Trade movement began over 25 years ago to show the European public the injustice and social unbalance caused by the international trade. The terms of trade, the price of raw materials and processed/technical goods, was very much in favour of the industrialized countries at that time. Fair trade started to counter this development by establishing criteria for sustainable trade with smallholders, starting with products such as coffee, tea and cocoa.
why do the two concepts belong together?
The well being of humans is considered to be the main priority of both organic and fair trade and to allow a sustainable development for all parties involved in the process.
The perception of consumers is that buying a product certified/labelled by one concept includes automatically the other label/concept. But in reality not all organic products would fulfil fair trade criteria. On the other hand less than half of the fair trade food products are certified organic.
what are the differences between organic and fair trade?
Organic traders have, for many years, implemented their own social standards. However, the Global Organic Textiles Standard (GOTS) is applicable to the growing and processing of organic cotton as well as conformance (section 60.17) to a social criterion which must be met including employment, such as conforming to the International Labour Organisation standards (www.ilo.org) which also defines child and child labour which is not allowed under organic standards.
Under GOTS, all workers must be provided with safe and hygienic working conditions, have the freedom of association and collective bargaining, their wages must comply with at least the national legal standard or industry benchmarks, whichever is the higher and must also meet basic needs and give discretionary income. Working hours must at least comply with national laws and can not exceed 48 hours a week on a regular basis nor can workers be made to work more than 6 days out of 7. A premium rate must be paid for any overtime that is freely agree to, and workers must be free from discrimination or threatening behaviour.
Organic agriculture standards must be fulfilled before anything can be labelled 'organic' and there is an established concept offering one international accepted set of basic organic standards, following one inspection, one certification and one accreditation. Inspection to GOTS will make sure that all social criteria included in the standards is adhered to before organic certification can be achieved.
Fair trade standards comprise both minimum social, economic and environmental requirements, which producers must meet to be certified, plus progress requirements that encourage continuous improvement to develop farmers’ organisations or the situation of estate workers. Fair trade starts in cooperatives with a very low profile in social justice and opens up possibilities of development for this cooperative/organisation. Social justice is an aim to be reached during the relationship of south to north trading. In addition, the Fair trade system includes environmental standards as part of producer certification which requires producers to work to protect the natural environment and make environmental protection a part of farm management. Producers are also encouraged to minimize the use of energy, especially energy from non-renewable sources.
There are a lot of different sets of criteria for fair trade with hardly any practice in third party certification. Four organisations; Fair Trade Labelling Organisation International (FLO); The International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT); The Network of European World Shops (NEWS) and The European Federation of Alternative Trade Organisations (EFTA) have started an initiative in order to find a platform for coordination and cooperation.
Natracare organic cotton is certified to the Global Organic Textiles Standard and conforms to all social criteria.