Fairtrade

We have all seen this label before, either in big supermarkets or in local grocery stores. But what exactly is it?

The Fairtrade Label

http://www.ed.ac.uk/about/sustainability/be/fair-trade/fair-trade-products

It is the product label for Fairtrade, a sustainable trade with developing countries. The Fairtrade international headquarters, FLO, in Bonn, Germany, describe Fairtrade as a “global organization working to secure a better deal for farmers and workers”.

Farmers must be certified for minimum social, economic and environmental requirements to participate in Fairtrade, a process coordinated by FLO-CERT, but benefits include better prices, decent working conditions and local sustainability. Fairtrade guarantees a fair minimum price so that the growers are protected and have stability and financial security. In addition, they can receive extra money called Fairtrade premium. Producers can choose what to do with the money whose purpose it to serve the community of and around farmers or workers on plantations. They can use it to build schools, health centers, or even to become certified organic.

Fairtrade Bananas in Ghana

http://fairtradecanada.tumblr.com/

Fairtrade also guarantees a greater respect for farmers and for the environment and encourages smallholder farmers to work together in cooperatives so that they can share resources and strengthen their bargaining power. Therefore, it creates a closer link between consumer and producer, meaning that small farmers have a stronger position in world markets.

Some Fairtrade Products

http://server-e9-11.hosting.imerja.com/resources/fair_comment/summer_2010/fairtrade_products.aspx

Today, thousands of products that contain at least 20% Fairtrade ingredients and fulfill the Fairtrade standards carry the Fairtrade mark and benefit more than 7.5 million people, including workers, farmers and their families in 59 countries. In 2012, over 80 million euros were paid in Fairtrade Premium, while consumers spent more than 4.8 billion euros on Fairtrade products. Fairtrade has made a huge impact on millions of people and is the most widely recognized ethical label around the world.

A Borehole drilled using Premium Money in a sugar cane cooperative in Malawi

http://fairtradeblog.tumblr.com/post/26347586167/taking-root-making-a-difference-fairtrade-in

Relevant Sites

http://www.fairtrade.net/361.html

http://www.enterprisevillage.org.uk/cooperateforchange/content/6-how-do-they-help/6a-How-do-Fairtrade-Co-operatives-Help-People-Teachers-br.pdf

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/mar/12/ethicalliving.lifeandhealth

The Wonders of Wine

Last week, I got the chance to take a tour of the Kelleris Vineyard, one of the 55 commercial vineyards in Denmark, an industry that has been growing in the last decade. The Kelleris Vineyard owned by Susanne and Søren Hartvig Jensen, is just about an hour out of Copenhagen in North Zealand. Denmark’s average summer temperature is 17.5^oC and wine grapes are usually grown in temperatures ranging from 21 to 32^oC in the summer, so imagine my surprise when I learned that wine could be made there.

The Kelleris Vineyard

http://www.kellerisvingaard.dk/kelleris-vineyard/gallery.html

The wines made at Kelleris Vineyard since 2001 are called Utopia because the project of growing wine grapes in what we could call a rather ‘hostile’ land seemed unrealistic. But just a few years earlier, by crossing different varieties of grapes, perfect vines requiring less sunshine and lower temperatures were created. They were the perfect opportunity for wine making in Denmark. The question is why. Why is wine so important today that people come to such extents to make it? 

The Utopia Wine

http://www.kellerisvingaard.dk/kelleris-vineyard/gallery.html

Traditionally wine is a religious and hierarchical drink. For thousands of years, wine has been a major symbol of the christian religion and has been deeply rooted in the European history. Wine can be called a “spiritual” drink and can even be seen as sacred. Wine is also associated to hierarchy, which can be assessed by the great variety of wines and range of prices and qualities. An elitist culture was traditionally attached to the consumption of wine leading to a social differentiation.

Wine and Religion

http://barrelroomsf.blogspot.dk/2012_06_01_archive.html

However today, a new culture of wine has been emerging with the popularization of the beverage. Many publications such as journals, magazines and guides written by wine experts or journalists have exposed wine to more people. This was accompanied by the explosion of places devoted to wine consumption with festivals or even wine bars. This has enabled the spread of a wine culture among consumers. It is now easy to learn about wine and appreciate it. Somehow, wine has been democratized.

Wine Festival 

http://www.nywinefestivals.com/events/new-york-city-winter-wine-festival-2014/

Relevant sites

http://www.kellerisvingaard.dk/kelleris-vineyard.html

http://denmark.dk/en/lifestyle/food-drink/winegrowing-at-the-northern-limit/

http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Vineyard

Today's Plants of Power

The global population is increasing faster and faster every year and feeding the population is a major issue. The most important plants nowadays are the crops that nourish the world. Wheat, rice and corn provide more than 50% of the world’s food energy. These three crops are staple food for most of the planet and are very promising for the future because of their high caloric contents. Together, wheat rice and corn account for 87% of all grain production worldwide. They are vital to the world and especially to the developing countries.

The Nutrition Facts of Corn, Wheat and Rice

http://www.healthaliciousness.com/nutritionfacts/nutrition-comparison.php?o=20015&t=20077&h=20060&s=76.00&e=58.00&r=118.00

Wheat is the most widely grown cereal grain and occupies 17% of the total cultivated land. It is the staple food of 35% of the world’s population and provides more calories and protein in the world than any other crop. Wheat is the primary cereal of temperate regions and is a staple of North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and much of the Middle East. The US produces about 10% of the world’s wheat but supplies 25% of the wheat exports. Wheat is not a very high yielding crop but it is very important as it provides food for developing countries. Asia plants more than half of the developing world’s wheat. It is also very important in eastern and southern Africa where wheat consumption has increased a lot. It can grow in dry and cold climates and is therefore the leading source of vegetable proteins for humans in the world.

Global Wheat Consumption and Production

http://www.tfreview.com/feature/commodities/uncertain-harvest-soft-commodities-update

Rice is mostly used for food consumption, which makes it a vital food crop for many people. About a fifth of all calories consumed by humans comes from rice. Asia produces and consumes 90% of the world’s rice. It is however also a staple food in Latin America and the Caribbean. Rice is one of the leading sources of protein for the poorest 20% of the tropical population and supplies more protein per person than milk, beans or beef. Rice is a source of energy, employment and income that about a million people in Latin America depend on. Besides demand for rice has grown by 6% every year in West Africa for the past 30 years. Rice is the primary cereal of tropical and some temperate regions. Billions of people rely on it, which makes it one of the most powerful plants in the world.  

Rice Consumption and Poverty

http://www.riice.org/about-riice/

Corn is very important too as it is the most produced grain in the world. Corn is a staple food for people in the Americas, Africa and for livestock worldwide. Corn or maize is the major crop produced in the US who is also the largest producer of corn in the world. It produces 34% of the world’s maize. In 2011, 84 million acres of corn were harvested which resulted in $63.9 billion from sales. The US exports about 20% of its corn production. Corn has over 500 uses and is a major component of our everyday lives but in the developing world, corn is vital to guarantee food security. About half of the developing world’s corn grows in Asia. In South Asia, 75% of the corn production is for food. Maize also accounts for more than 40% of total cereal production in sub-Saharan Africa where corn is used almost exclusively for food.

World Corn Consumption

http://www.thedairysite.com/articles/2135/us-feed-outlook-december-2009

Wheat, rice and corn are therefore the most important food crops of the 21^st century. They are essential to food security and if they were to disappear, a global famine would emerge causing the death of billions of people.

Relevant sites

http://www.agweb.com/virtual-wheat-tour/

http://www.epa.gov/agriculture/ag101/cropmajor.html

http://www.riice.org/about-riice/

Food Security

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The freedom of man, I contend, is the freedom to eat”. Food security that can be defined as the physical and economic access at all times to adequate amounts of nutritious and safe foods is one of the major problems that the world faces. With growing environmental concerns and an ever-increasing global population, land grabbing and sustainable smallholder farming emerge as possible solutions to food insecurity.

Since the green revolution, a wide range of environmental concerns has become more prominent and is now a threat to food security. They include atmospheric, water and land pollution, water scarcity and land erosion. Some of the major causes are urbanization and industrialization, the use of genetic engineering, pesticides and biofuels and the effect of monoculture. Deforestation is another major issue that could lead to biodiversity loss and an increase in pollution. All of these factors can influence and contribute to food scarcity.

Global Physical and Economic Water Scarcity

http://www.wri.org/resource/physical-and-economic-water-scarcity

In addition to that the world population is increasing very quickly which affects the availability of food. Every year, about there is about 80 million more people to feed and most of them are in the developing countries. The population is predicted to be of 9 billion by 2050. The food is inadequately distributed as the majority of the population lives in the developing world. Consequently, the demand for food increases as 25% of the global population is undernourished and 10% is starving. The higher demand for food will also result in a higher demand for meat. Animals need to be fed and lower the availability of food crops on the market. This is also one of the reasons for the increase in food price. This will be felt by millions of people and threaten food security.

World Population Distribution

http://www.dflorig.com/world2021.htm

To guarantee food security, some countries that don’t have arable land, take advantage of poorer countries to grow crops on their territory. Lang grab is however very bad for those countries’ economies because it forces the shift from small holder farming to large industry farming with low or no compensation to the farmers who have to relocate. Between 2008 and 2011, 200 million acres of land have been grabbed mostly by China, the Gulf States, South Korea and Japan to insure security.

Land Grab between 2000 and 2012

http://richardbrenneman.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/chart-of-the-day-the-great-global-land-grab/

A more legitimate but longer and more difficult option is sustainable smallholder farming, or “save and grow”. Crop production must be intensified to feed the world, and even doubled in the future years. The green revolution damaged soils and led to erosion, which cannot happen again with the current population growth. Farmers must therefore undertake sustainable crop production intensification.  The concept is to produce more from the same area of land but to conserve resources and to lower the negative consequences on the environment. Even though this seems like the best possibility for the future it is far from being done.

An Example of Sustainable Farming

http://save-as.org/GreenNews/News/multinationals-learn-about-sustainable-farming_2240

Relevant Sites

http://www.aplu.org/document.doc?id=3139

http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/143167/2/10%20EP%204%202012-11.pdf

http://www.cgiar.org/www-archive/www.cgiar.org/pdf/CCAFS_Strategy_december2009.pdf

http://www.ifpri.org/publication/threats-security-related-food-agriculture-and-natural-resources-what-do

http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/

Biopiracy: a Past and Present Issue

Biopiracy describes the illegal commercial use of biological resources and their associated traditional knowledge, or the patenting of inventions based on this knowledge without compensation. Over the years, plants have been stolen and exploited by other people, companies or countries many times.  

One important example of biopiracy is the tea transfer of 1848. Although India is today’s world biggest tea producer, tea was not even cultivated there before the 1850s. China used to be the only supplier of tea to the East India Company. However, the Chinese would only trade tea for silver, which was difficult to obtain. The East India Company got tired of it and decided to send a plant hunter, Robert Fortune to China in 1848 ‘for the purpose of obtaining the finest varieties of the tea plant, as well as native manufacturers and implements, for the government plantations in the Himalayas’. He arrived in Calcutta in March 1851 after having successfully stolen tea from China. When tea was taken illegally out of China, it had a very negative effect on the country’s economy. Indeed, by 1890, India was supplying 90% of Britain’s domestic market.

Robert Fortune

http://littleredcuptea.tumblr.com/post/38955101927/robert-fortune-tea-thief

Another significant economic act of biopiracy is the appropriation of rubber by the British from Brazil. Rubber comes from South America and the Aztecs already made it as early as 1600BC. In 1876 the British Kew Botanical Garden and the India office decided to grow rubber trees in India, Ceylon and the straits settlements of Singapore, which took about 20 years. It was Henry Alexander Wickham (1846-1928) who acquired the seeds in Brazil. The first commercial rubber tree plantations in India were established in 1902 using the Hevea brasiliensis tree seeds. During the 19^th century, Brazil had a monopoly on rubber and produced 98% of the world’s rubber, but after Wickham left the country, its world production fell down to 5% ruining the Amazon economy.

Hevea Brasiliensis seeds

http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/plants-fungi/hevea-brasiliensis-rubber-tree

Biopiracy is still a current issue; one example is the case of basmati rice. It is produced mostly in Punjab, Western India and in Pakistan and has been grown in India for centuries. It is now one of the fastest growing exports from India. Texasbased RiceTec Inc. obtained a patent in 1997 for a new plant variety that is a cross between Basmati rice and American long-grain rice. The new rice could be grown in specific areas of North America. The patent covers the genetic lines of the basmati rice. RiceTec has been selling rice under new brand names labels them as ‘American type Basmati Rice’. RiceTec could become a real threat to the sales of Indian Basmati rice and alter the economic conditions of the Indian farmers. However new measures are being taken in order to prevent this from happening and to avoid the recurrence of biopiracy in the future.

Jasmati Rice, a RiceTec brand

http://www.amazon.com/RiceSelect-Jasmati-Rice-32-Ounce-Jars/dp/B000EH4XYS

Relevant sites

http://www.amazonlink.org/biopiracy/acai.htm

http://www.ilshs.pl/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ILSHS-12-2014-49-56.pdf

http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/plants-fungi/hevea-brasiliensis-rubber-tree

Wood history or world history?

Plants have been the driver of many revolutions and discoveries in world history. Spices have had a huge impact on trade and on the development of Europe; the United States would probably not exist without tobacco; the French revolution might not have taken place without coffee, and we might still be nomadic tribes if it wasn’t for barley. But the truth is, none of these plants would matter, if there were no wood. Wood is truly the builder of our world, the means to empire building and the one plant that is vital for our survival.

Wood and Fire

http://astovegiveswarmwinter.blog.com/2012/10/17/33/

It all started more than one million years ago, when the Homo Erectus controlled fire for the first time, opening a whole new world of possibilities. Up until the Neolithic revolution, fire and wood were used for their most basic functions such as heat, light and weapons allowing the Homo erectus to evolve into the Homo sapiens. Then everything changed around 8,000 years ago, when humans decided to settle down and switch from nomadic hunter-gatherers to sedentary farmers. The Neolithic revolution would have never been possible without wood that allowed the construction of houses, the building of irrigation systems and the creation of the first agricultural tools.

Wood and the Neolithic Revolution

http://aratta.wordpress.com/neolithic-revolution/

 Slowly, our ancestors invented the wooden wheel, and created bridges. Trade rapidly emerged and led to the creation of countries that developed into big empires. The need to expand and colonize the world grew. Ships offered a solution to that desire and led to the age of discovery and colonization. Wood was used in events such as the crusades as well as in everybody’s homes. And most importantly, wood has provided us with an incredible written record of the past ever since the Chinese invented paper in 105 AD. Even today, the role of wood is undeniable. It is our most important source of renewable energy providing 9% of the total primary energy supply and more than two billion people still depend on it for heating and cooking.

One of Christopher Columbus' ships, the Niña

http://www.christopher-columbus.eu/columbus-ships.htm

Trees are vital to our survival. They cover a third of our planet and play a very important role in removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. When forests grow, they act as carbon sinks because carbon dioxide is absorbed partly in the wood. Trees can take in 48 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. They allow the planet to keep a cooler climate and if all the trees were to disappear, life would probably not be possible anymore. Without wood, we probably would not even have a history.

The global distribution of forests

http://www.globalwood.org/tech/forest.htm

Relevant Sites

http://www.eh-resources.org/wood.html

http://www.fao.org/forestry/energy/en/

http://www.greenfacts.org/en/forests/

The Reign of the British East India Company

In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I chartered the East India Company for trade with Asia. Its original aim was to enter the spice market. Wealthy merchants and aristocrats owned it and the government had only indirect control of it. Over the next few hundred years, the British East India Company (EIC) established a gigantic trade empire based on cotton, tea and opium.

The coat of arms of the EIC

http://bhoffert.faculty.noctrl.edu/HST165/09.Qianlong.html

It all started when the EIC defeated the Portuguese in the Battle of Swally in 1612.This led to the EIC’s gradual hold of India creating new trading ports and obtaining a monopoly of trade. As the EIC acquired more Indian territory, it established cotton factories in the mainland for a cheap price and then imported the products back to England. In 1625, the EIC was importing more than 220,000 pieces of cotton. The Indian cotton and calicoes had immediate success and no competition until the end of the 18^th century, therefore allowing the EIC to make very large profits and grow as a powerful organization.

The EIC in India

http://history.howstuffworks.com/asian-history/east-india-company.htm

The EIC had been very successful with calicoes in Europe and started to build another branch of its trade empire in the 1600s based on tea whose demand was rapidly increasing. It eventually replaced cotton as calicoes trade started to decline during the second half of the 18^th century. In 1644, the EIC was given permission to establish a trading base in Amoy in China. However the Chinese would only trade tea for silver. Finding such big amounts of silver was very difficult for the EIC that consequently decided to indirectly trade opium for silver.

Unloading tea ships in the EIC's docks in London

http://www.maritimeheritage.org/newtale/opium.html

In 1772, Hastings, the first governor general of India, established a monopoly, which gave an exclusive right to the EIC to purchase opium from the Bengal. The EIC would then sell it to private merchants even though the company knew that those merchants would illegally sell the opium to the Chinese. This trade however granted enough money for the EIC to buy silver. It lasted for a few decades until China whose population was getting more and more addicted to opium, got alarmed and started to restrict tea imports. The EIC however wanted to legalize the opium trade. This led to the two opium wars, which eventually allowed the legalization of the opium trade in 1860.

The British destroying the Chinese ships during the first Opium War

http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/opium_wars_01/ow1_essay03.html

During this time, the EIC sent the plant hunter Robert Fortune to China to obtain tea and other plants. In 1851, he successfully brought back tea seeds to India as well as the equipment necessary to manufacture it. As a result, the EIC did not need to rely on China anymore. Soon after however, in 1874, the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act of 1873 dissolved the company, after a long, unique and prosperous reign.

Relevant sites

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/east_india_01.shtml

http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/opium_wars_01/ow1_essay03.html