Group brings fair trade concept to local farms

from the Winona Daily News

By Amber Dulek | Winona Daily News
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It happened with coffee, tea and chocolate.

Now, a pilot group of farmers and co-ops hopes to bring to the Midwest the international fair trade movement that lobbied for worker equity, environmentalism and production standards.

“Coffee was the originator of the fair trade movement,” said Liz Haywood, general manager of Bluff Country Co-op in Winona. “Domestic fair trade is the new frontier.”

In 2001, members of the Local Fair Trade Network started discussing ways to reconnect growers, sellers and consumers in the upper Midwest to promote “agricultural justice.”

Agricultural justice — creating standards for fair food prices to meet production costs, livable wages for workers and long-term contracts with groceries — isn’t just a global notion, said Erik Esse, the network’s coordinator.

“We saw the improvement of lives of coffee farmers in Latin worker and thought we could use same concept for farmers here,” Esse said. “Farm workers — those working in big dairies, outside laborers and meat-packing — have some of the worse situations, not only in pay and respect. It’s grueling conditions.”

The Minneapolis-based organization started a pilot project with four organic farmers and two food co-ops, including Bluff Country Co-op, and Keewaydin Farms in Viola, Wis., in 2002 and are currently in the process of rolling out labeling and advertising in the stores.

Rufus Haucke grows 100 kinds of vegetables on five acres at Keewayden Farms. The 29-year-old, who has been organic farming for four years, works directly with Haywood at Bluff Country to set produce prices and settle on what products can be available throughout the year n offering stability for both businesses.

In return, he promises to offer his one employee $8 an hour as well as housing and to limit his exposure to pesticides.

As part of the certification, the Local Fair Trade Network audited Haucke’s farm and the Bluff Country Co-op n looking at finances, talking to workers and checking for safety guidelines and production practices.

“It represents someone not just squeaking by,” Esse said. “Because a one-third to half of the farmers are undocumented and if they’re being screwed they can’t go to authorities.”

Centro Campesino, a non-profit migrant farmworker organization in Owatonna, Minn., offers help to nearly 500 members in the upper Midwest with civil rights issues, income tax preparation and disputes with worker compensations.

“Most of our farm workers don’t have minimum wage,” said organizer Ernesto Clara. “It depends on the farmer because there’s no minimum wage for a farm worker.”

Wages are so low, he said, many have to work longer hours or increase their production speed. He estimated farm workers make an average of $7 to $8 an hour with no benefits.

While dropping off tomatoes and celery at Bluff Country Tuesday afternoon, Haucke said farmers often get stuck in the middle because of low produce prices in a competitive market.

“We can’t make food too expensive or people won’t buy it, but we want to pay our employees living wages,” he said. “It’s a real fine line.”

If You Go

WHAT: Panel discussion on “What We Eat and Why It Matters”

WHO: Erik Esse, coordinator of Local Fair Trade Network; Ruth Ozeki, author of “My Year of Meats”; and Colette Hyman, WSU history professor

WHEN: 2 p.m. in WSU’s Kryzsko Commons

COST: Free

BONUS: “A Conversation with

Ruth Ozeki” at 10 a.m. in Kryzsko Commons

INFO: visit www.winona.edu/

commonbook

Contact Amber Dulek at 507-453-3513 or amber.dulek@lee.net.