Invest in the Future of Food (& Coffee)!
Contributed by Anna Canning, Fair World Project Communications Coordinator
This Saturday, May 13th, people in over 70 countries on every continent except Antarctica will celebrate World Fair Trade Day and the small-scale farmers and artisans at the heart of the fair trade movement. Fair trade is a movement that empowers farmers to organize and earn a livelihood within the highly competitive global marketplace. Through organizing, they tend to what matters most—their family, communities, and the environment. Through organic and regenerative farming practices, small-scale farmers are able to feed 70% of the world’s people on just a fraction of the land.
These small-scale farmers are the heart of our global food system (not to mention the source of your daily cup of coffee). Yet they are seeing the impacts of a changing climate in the weather and in their fields. Study after study shows that through traditional farming practices and regenerative organic innovations, these small-scale farmers are growing solutions to climate change that have been proven to work. Yet they can’t access the same funding for their organic agroecology solutions that the big ag and chemical companies can.