An issue that comes up time and time again within debates of fair trade and local produce is that of ‘Do I buy local or do I buy fair trade?’ My approach to this has always been if it can be fair trade buy that, so things like tea, coffee and flowers (all of which are bought regularly in my household) are all fair trade on my shelves. However, things like potatoes and eggs I buy those produced locally. This is a very crude division as you will notice that it wouldn’t be possible for me to buy locally grown tea or coffee! Also, as far as I am aware there aren’t fair trade options available for potatoes and eggs.

However, one country in which there is increasingly the option to buy locally produced Fairtrade products is South Africa. On my recent visit I learnt that in the five months in which South Africa has been able to label its own fair trade products, under the Fairtrade Labelling South Africa initiative, seven products have been certified which are also available to buy within the country. This means were I to be doing my shopping in South Africa it would be more likely that I could buy Fairtrade products which had been produced in my own country. This is an exciting development for fair trade as they can now be sold in home markets, not having to depend on exports for trade.

Export trade will undoubtedly continue to play a vital role in fair trade, although our weather may be getting hotter I’m not sure how soon it will be until we can grow tea on a scale large enough to meet our nation’s demand for it, and therefore there will continue to be a need for organisations like Shared Interest who are involved in supporting fair trade businesses and facilitation of international trade of fair trade goods. Fair trade being traded locally however opens up markets to help us make all trade fair trade. It is from consumer demand that we are able to increase the proportion of trade which is fair trade. By buying more Divine chocolate for example we can make sure that the co-operative behind Divine, Kuapa Kokoo, can sell 100% of their cocoa as fair trade, as supposed to the approximately 5% which is currently sold as fair trade. By taking on ‘The Big Swap’ to encourage as many of the nation’s tea lovers to convert their cuppa to fair trade the Fairtrade Foundation hopes to increase the percentage of Fairtrade tea consumed in the UK. Go on, give fair trade a go.

Click here to learn how you can invest in fair trade. Click here to donate to the Shared Interest Foundation