Nearly four years ago the Competitions Commission found that supermarkets transfer ‘excessive risks and unexpected costs’ onto their suppliers. For instance they can order a set quantity of goods from a supplier and at the time of delivery can cancel part or all of the order without compensation. This affects both our own local farmers and Fairtrade and other overseas suppliers, and can drive them to the verge of bankruptcy.

MPs from all three main political parties support the introduction of a supermarkets watchdog, or Groceries Code Adjudicator (GCA), and a parliamentary bill has been drafted and scrutinised, but for lack of parliamentary time it has gone no further. A Groceries Supply Code of Practice was set up in 2012 but has no teeth.

We are asked to write to our MPs asking them to urge the inclusion of the bill in the next Queen’s Speech, and for the GCA to have the power to fine supermarkets who break the code and to launch investigations based on any credible evidence, including from third parties.

At the Campaigning Day we were encouraged to write a ‘poem’ for inclusion in a Valentine’s Day card to out MP on the subject; ours follows!

As I am sure you know the Winchester MP is Steve Brine and you can write to him at The House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA.

The talk by Rosemary Dunhill and David Lloyd at the AGM on 21 November 2011 was about a holiday, which took place in November 2010. It was one of a series of trips arranged by Traidcraft with the overall title of ‘Meet the People’ Tours. It covered a relatively small area in what is a large country, five times the size of the UK, but the area visited had many of the contrasts of the country – between densely populated and sparsely populated, temperate and very hot, fertile and desert, first world and third world. Huge problems of poverty and inequality remain, many the legacy of the apartheid years, but we saw how Fairtrade, along with government and other initiatives, were slowly addressing these problems.

We visited Fairhills, a very extensive Fairtrade wine-making co-operative with 22 participating farms, where the members have a major role in decision-making. The wine can be purchased at Sainsbury’s and the Co-op; the Co-op is a major customer and benefactor. We visited the outlet of their craft co-operative, set up to help the women to develop another income stream, and the café, where our waitress told us of the transformation Fairtrade had brought to their lives. Day care centres, youth clubs, sporting facilities, health care and much more have been provided from the Fairtade premium with additional help from the Co-op – and back in England we discovered that Fairhills sponsors Big Issue sellers both in South Africa and here!

Further north, in the outskirts of the Kalahari desert, we visited the Eksteenskuil Agricultural Co-operative, where the primary product is raisin grapes used by Traidcraft in geobars, muesli and other products. Our guide had been brought up in Pretoria, moving to this very hot and poor area after marrying a black farmer as soon as the law permitted. The Fairtrade premium has enabled the scattered farms to be connected to the electricity grid. The co-operative has also purchased a pool of tools and equipment for hire by the farmers.

In an area with 80% unemployment we were shown a rose geranium essential oils plant recently set up by the government on the banks of the Orange River. And we were entertained by a wonderful group of Nama (bushman) dancers, using this means not only to bring in a small income but also to preserve and share their culture and language, almost stamped out in the apartheid years.

At the Heiveld Co-operative, near Nieuwoudtville in Namaqualand, made up of 63 small scale farms, we saw a rooibos tea plantation and met some ladies who had diversified this with building a small group of traditional huts as guesthouses. The Fairtrade premium has enabled the farmers to develop their business, particularly business initiatives for women, and support local schools and transport.

Further south again we visited Beautifulgate, an orphanage for children with HIV/Aids which had expanded to provide a community development programme for young people in this very deprived area. This is a non-governmental organisation with some funding from government and various trusts; it also runs a child sponsorship scheme. And we were taken to Kaya Mandi, a township largely comprising shacks with again high levels of poverty and unemployment but a strong community spirit. We visited a school and were given lunch in a ‘homestead’. It is clearly on a sort of alternative tourist route, and so forms another way in which some income is being brought into an area of very great need.

Two more Fairtrade visits concluded our tour. Koopmanskloof was our second winery, and here members of the co-operative had shares not only in the farming business but also in the winery itself. The wine is exported to several European countries and also to America and China, and can be bought from Traidcraft. Rainbow Fruits is a much smaller operation, providing employment for a small group of previously disadvantaged women in preparing and cutting dried fruit, which again can be bought through Traidcraft., The workers are all shareholders.

The tour was what it said – an opportunity to meet the people – and we felt we gained a lot of insight from seeing these different models of Fairtrade in operation.

Andy and Hannah hope that their shop will do more than sell their products. They would like to promote discussion, increase education, challenge habits and preconceptions, encourage new behaviour, and help people make informed decisions. It sounds like a pretty full agenda! It is great to come across young people with such vision and drive. They also plan to be a social enterprise, to donate money to local projects that increase sustainability and to local organisations which help raise awareness of sustainability.

Connect to Fuzzi website

Fairtrade fortnight ran from 28 February to 13 March 2011 and during the first week we had our banner across the High Street. This proclaims that Winchester is a Fairtrade City and that the University is a Fairtrade University.

The two main events were the talk by Toby Quantrill on Wednesday, 9 March, and the Fairtrade Open Day at the Guildhall on Sunday, 13 March.

The United Church were active, having a Fairtrade Food Shop open on each of the Wednesdays during the fortnight, and each day during the fortnight they served a cake made with fairtrade ingredients at their coffee shop. Did you see the giant fairtrade cup and banner outside the church in Jewry Street? They also had a Fairtrade Pancake Bake on Shrove Tuesday which fell in the fortnight.

If you were walking up the High Street at lunchtime on the first Wednesday of the fortnight you may have been offered a fairtrade banana by ‘Fairtrade Fergus’ who was dressed in a gorilla suit. For some reason most people refused to take a banana from him! He was there with Andrew Rutter who was handing out programmes of what events were on during the fortnight.

On Saturday, 5 March, Rosemary Dunhill and David Lloyd gave a talk in St Mark’s Church Hall, Oliver’s Battery, about their experiences meeting fairtrade producers in South Africa. On Tuesday, 8 March, there was the talk by Toby Quantrill which is reported elsewhere on this website, and on Thursday, 10 March, the Mayor of Winchester, Councillor Richard Izard, welcomed schoolchildren from All Saints Primary School, Winchester, to Abbey House. The children surrounded the house with bunting made from fairtrade cotton as part of the national attempt to produce the longest stretch of bunting ever made. The bunting was decorated by the children from All Saints School. Westgate School, and Lanterns Nursery School, Winchester and from six other schools around Hampshire.

A very successful fortnight was rounded off in style with the Fairtrade Awareness Open Day which included a fashion show. The event was organised by students from the University and held in the Guildhall. Pictures of this are shown elsewhere on this website.

Click here to see the full programme of events as published in advance of the fortnight.

Students from the University of Winchester put on an excellent show at the Guildhall on 13 March 2011 with information leaflets and stalls promoting and selling fairtrade goods.

Twice during the day there was a fashion show of clothing made with fairtrade cotton (and an extra model crept in on one of them).

We were pleased to be visited by Steve Brine, our Member of Parliament, and his family. Steve was pictured with the organisers of the event.

As part of Fairtrade Fortnight 2011 in Winchester Toby Quantrill, Head of Policy at the Fairtrade Foundation, gave a stimulating talk on the above subject.

In the struggle between the weak and the powerful, to do nothing is not to be neutral but to side with the powerful against the weak. Fairtrade is a way of siding with the weak and has been an incredible success story, especially in the UK, which is responsible for the a third of all Fairtrade purchases. It contributes to a wide mission of social justice. It achieved £1b of sales last year but does not simply aim to get more products on to the shelves. Fairtrade can’t do everything; it can and does do something; it can do more.

A report was commissioned from the National Resources Institute into the likely impact of climate change on some key Fairtrade crops at global level. They concluded that the global impact on cotton, cocoa, tea and bananas was all likely to be bad, although on sugar not all bad. But the study made it very clear that while global trends may be relatively predictable, at local level there is still complete uncertainty. If farmers are able to keep growing they could be helped by a long-term increase in global prices (albeit with more volatility and offset by rising costs of food and fertilisers), but only if they are in a position to capture that additional price.

Fairtrade’s strategy for climate change is a combination of research and development into climate change, along with a support programme; looking at the impact Fairtrade could make on climate change; and awareness and advocacy work.

Fairtrade provides a good route to diversification, a core part in adapting to climate change, helped through the Fairtrade Premium. Many farmers are investing in low carbon improvements. Fairtrade also encourages farmers to come together to share ideas.

The Fairtrade Foundation published a discussion document in 2009 on how the climate revolution must be a fair revolution. The Airmiles debate needs to be extended to a broader discussion based on ‘Fairmiles’ which includes consideration of social justice as well as environment. Flowers and green vegetables from Kenya are the only Fairtrade products which are air-freighted. Bananas have a very low carbon footprint. 93% of carbon emissions from a cup of tea come from boiling the kettle. Kenyan farmers have been encouraged to produce out-of-season vegetables for export to Europe and they should at least be given time to diversify to other products if this is no longer welcome.

It is desirable to lower the carbon footprint of the way the Fairtrade movement operates.

On climate change advocacy, there was a Fairtrade presence at the meetings at Cancun, through the producer networks, and there would be a Fairtrade presence at Durban, led by Fairtrade Africa.

Turning to wider issues of sustainable development, he identified three major issues: water and how it should be used, soil fertility, and biodiversity, where significant damage has been done. Environmental, social and economic issues are all crucial and need to work together. Inequality is increasingly seen as part of the equation; poverty cannot be solved unless this is addressed. The core challenges are the needs to produce more food/products with fewer resource inputs; to consume less and to consume better; and to distribute resources more equally. We need a model of consumption based on value rather than price, on quality rather than quantity.

Fairtrade is a real and practical global response to the challenge of sustainable development. It is about the redistribution of power, not just money.

Join us in this annual opportunity to celebrate and promote Fairtrade!

Look out for our new banner which will hang across the High Street throughout the first week of the Fortnight.

Planned events include:

Wednesday 2 March, 10.00am – 2.00pm: Fairtrade Food Shop at the United Church, Jewry Street

Wednesday 2 March, 12.00 noon – 1.00pm: Meet Fergus-the-Gorilla distributing Fairtrade bananas under our banner in the High Street

Saturday 5 March, 7.30pm: Meeting Fairtrade producers in South Africa, an illustrated talk by Rosemary Dunhill and David Lloyd, St Mark’s Church, Oliver’s Battery

Tuesday 8 March, 4.30 – 6.30pm, Pancake Bake in the United Church Hall, Jewry Street. Savoury and sweet fillings, including Fairtrade sugar, lemon, banana, chocolate etc

Tuesday 8 March, 6.00 for 6.30pm: Fairtrade and Climate Change: a Common Cause, a talk by Toby Quantrill, the Fairtrade Foundation Head of Policy, The Stripe, University of Winchester, Sparkford Road

Wednesday 9 March, 10.00am – 2.00pm: Fairtrade Food Shop at the United Church, Jewry Street

Thursday 10 March, 10.30am: All Saints Primary School children wrapping bunting round Abbey House

Sunday 13 March, 11.00am – 3.00pm: Fairtrade Open Day with stalls. Fashion shows at 12.30pm and 2.00pm, Courtyard Room, Winchester Guildhall

Sunday 13 March, after morning service: Traidcraft stall and serving of Fairtrade honey cakes, St Mary’s Church, Kingsworthy

The University of Winchester, which is a Fairtrade University, works closely with Winchester City Fairtrade Network. The last two listed events are held in partnership. The University is also organising its own series of events. For details see their website, www.winchester.ac.uk.

In addition to the events in the above sequence both the United Church and St Mary’s Church, Kingsworthy, are supporting the Fairtrade Foundation’s attempt to break the current Guinness World Record for bunting, with opportunities throughout the Fortnight to decorate flags with messages and images about Fairtrade. And the United Church’s regular Monday – Friday coffee bar (10.00 am – 2.00 pm) will include a Fairtrade Cake of the Day.

If you know of any other Fairtrade events planned for this fortnight, please let us know by e-mailing contact@winchesterfairtrade.org.uk so that we can add them to this list.

The talk was given before the deferred 2010 AGM. David has worked at Divine since 2005. Chocolate has been viewed as a treasure for many centuries. The Mayans and Aztecs used cocoa beans as currency.

Ten years ago the government of Ghana partially liberalised the cocoa industry, which had previously been entirely state controlled. In 1997 45,000 Ghanaian cocoa farmers formed a co-operative called Kuapa Kokoo and voted to start their own chocolate company. In 1998 Divine Chocolate Company was launched in the UK with the help of Twin Trading, the Body Shop, Christian Aid, and Comic Relief. Kuaka Kokoo owned a third of the company. In 2006 the Body Shop donated all their shares to Kuaka Kokoo, so the farmers now have a shareholding of 45%.

In choosing what chocolate to buy a good criterion is to go for the one where the highest proportion of the profits pass to the farmers, and this is certainly true of Divine. The farmers get the fairtrade price for their beans, plus the fairtrade premium, plus 2% of total turnover as producer support, plus their share of the profits. Board meetings alternate between London and Ghana.

He talked about chocolate tasting and how all the senses should be involved – appearance, touch, sound, aroma, mouth-feel, flavour and aftertaste. There are 1500 distinct flavour compounds in chocolate compared with about 300 in wine. You should always taste the lowest percentage cocoa chocolate before the higher ones.

The tree gives nothing for the first 4-5 years. It grows to the size of an apple tree. It has 30 years of productive life if you are lucky, but can live for 60 years. The pods grow directly on the tree and are the size of a small rugby ball. They are cut by hand using machetes and hooked knives. The pods have to be split open for the beans to be extracted. Each pod has about 40 beans, and there are about 40 pods to a tree. The beans are wrapped in plantain leaves and left to ferment over 5-8 days. They are then spread on large tables and dried in the sun for 5-12 days, reducing their moisture content from 60% to less than 8%; this is essential to prevent mould. They are then packed and transported to Europe – in fact to Germany, where Divine has a long-term contract with the company which makes the chocolate. When they were first set up no English company was prepared to do the work as they didn’t think Divine would succeed. The ‘cake’ left at the end of the chocolate making process is ground into drinking chocolate.

The co-operative now has its own scales. This is very important. Previously they were dependent on salesmen coming to buy from them with manipulated scales. Everything is well-managed and visible. In one small village there are five or six different religions but all work together. The Fairtrade Premium is paid at the end of the year and spent on the village, the villagers deciding what they want. One village chose to have a mill at cost of £2,500. Schools are absolutely key. Some issues arose about child labour, and it is difficult because it is natural for children to help their parents on small family farms – but this has been dealt with. Most of the villages have wells, many paid from the Fairtrade Premium, which benefits the whole community not just the Co-operative members.

20% of the world’s chocolate comes from Ghana, almost entirely from small family farms. 40% comes from the Ivory Coast which has huge estates. In Ghana chocolate also makes up 20%of the country’s foreign exchange and because this is so key to the economy the Government insists that they spray, so they cannot produce organic chocolate.

The Fairtrade Premium is set by the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation and at present is 200 dollars. At present the market price is higher than the Fairtrade price so the farmers get this – they get whichever is the higher.

Divine made just short of £30million last year. In the same period Cadbury’s spent £11million sponsoring Coronation Street!

Link to Divine Chocolate

Fairtrade Fortnight 2010

In his talk, David Pain said:

"Poverty is an outrage against humanity. It robs people of their dignity, freedom and hope. Poverty robs people of power over their own lives," David Pain, leader of Christian Aid’s Africa division, said in opening his lecture at the University of Winchester on Wednesday 24 February.

Mr Pain was giving his lecture on the ending of poverty in Africa to an audience of more than 80 people as one of the highlights of the city’s celebration of Fairtrade Fortnight. His lecture was sponsored by the University of Winchester – a registered fairtrade university – and the Winchester City Fairtrade network. Professor Joy Carter, Vice-Chancellor of the university, and John Beveridge, Chairman of the city’s Fairtrade Network, welcomed Mr Pain to the event.

In the experience of Christian Aid, Mr Pain said, poverty was caused by unequal power relations. Men and women in the developing world had to take personal power, economic power, political power and social power in their own societies if poverty were to be ended.

Poverty, he emphasised, was about power: it was political. "The ending of poverty required political will of the order that was applied to the abolition of slavery, the ending of apartheid – and dare we say it, the rescuing of the global banking system." Only people could change politics and challenge poverty.

He saw three opportunities that needed to be worked on in the ending of poverty: trade justice, climate justice and accountable governance.

For the past three decades the global economy had been managed from within the mindset of the so-called "Washington Consensus". Policies such as deregulation, privatisation, low corporate taxation and the wholesale liberalisation of trade and financial markets had been the norm.

We had lived with the myth, the comfortable myth, that economic growth would eventually benefit everyone. We had believed, despite ever-growing environmental and financial evidence to the contrary, that our model was sustainable. "But we know now that our financial systems and assumptions of growth are deeply unsustainable."

Mr Pain ended by saying: "The three opportunities for trade justice, climate justice and accountable governance are not easy options – but they are the essence of a transformation that could lead to the ending of poverty in Africa."

He told his listeners: "If we are to respond positively to these opportunities, we need your voice to be added to the process of change, your influence as a consumer, your action as a campaigner, your power as a voter to be added to the movement that will end poverty."

The event was introduced by dancers. Then we had the fashion show.

In the foyer there were stalls and coffee provided by Grant Lang of Mozzo Coffee.

It was a very enjoyable and successful evening.