Tracy Mitchell is a Shared Interest ambassador and the views expressed herein are her own and do not necessarily represent the views of Shared Interest Society.
Phew! Fairtrade Fortnight is over and just in time I managed to complete the last two challenges on the Fairtrade Fortnight Member Challenge list.
After heading across to Falkirk on Sunday morning to give another in the series of talks about Shared Interest to churches there, we cooked a great salmon and pea risotto for dinner. We used a brand new fairly traded rice from Malawi (in fact the rice is so new it has only been available in the UK since the start of Fairtrade Fortnight). And we took a photo too!!
The rice is part of a new Malawi Kitchen range being developed by Just Trading Scotland – a new joint venture between The Coach House (Balmore) and Rainbow Turtle. Just Trading Scotland is working in partnership with Imani Development and the Scottish Government to develop new fair trade markets for Malawian producers. The first new fair trade product introduced as part of this project is the rice – it is Kilombero Long Grain Aromatic Rice and is grown by NASFAM farmers in the north of Malawi. And, though I say it myself, the risotto was very tasty!!
One of the initial sales outlets for this product is schools. Local schools have been using the rice during Fairtrade Fortnight and these trials have been supported with posters, banners and teachers’ packs to facilitate the link with the school curriculum. It is hoped that other schools will try the rice as the year progresses maybe starting with existing Fairtrade Schools or those working towards FT status, or any schools with twinning arrangements with Malawi.
Another key market at this stage is church stalls, particularly through a 90kg rice challenge. Only 1 in 3 children attends High School in Malawi and yet if a farmer in Malawi can sell 90kg of rice at a fair price then he would have sufficient income to send one of his children to High School. So, if a church (or other group) agrees to take 90kg of rice to sell (and if 90 people buy 1kg rice each) they can….eat someone out of poverty!
The rice is also stocked by GreenCity Wholefoods and hopefully will be stocked in a wide variety of whole food shops and world shops across the country soon!
So 14 days, 14 challenges complete and now I am ready for a rest!!
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Tracy, you’ve certainly been busy! I am extremely impressed by what you have achieved during Fairtrade Fortnight, you have taken the challenge and ran with it! I hope some of our other members have been inspired by your stories and taken on at least some if not all of the 14 challenges. Well done. Ps. the salmon and pea risotto sounded lovely!