Is Wales really a “Fair Trade” nation?
According to the Welsh Assembly Government, Wales is a fair trade nation, in fact we’re the first.
I think this claim requires a bit of thought. Have we all suddenly converted to fair trade products (beyond the coffee and the chocolate), an end to sweat shops making our cheap clothes and a commitment to spend more on overseas development? No of course we haven’t.
I ask this because of a meeting I’ve just had with Rev James Karran from Ararat Baptist church in Whitchurch. He and many others are leading the campaign against some of our retail outlets whose sub-contracting of clothes manufacturing uses sweat shops, mostly in Asia. What it means to be fair trade is interesting, and I suspect easy to define if we gloss over some of the difficult bits such as clothing.
It’s easy to buy fair trade food and drink products from the shelves and they tend to taste better than the brand products. It’s also easy to argue for more international development money from the UK government. How easy is it though to avoid spending money on cheap clothes in Asda or Primark in favour of higher prices in Next?
On this, the trendy notion of fair trade is replaced with an obvious personal economic reality check.