Recapped By :
Kehinde Fanimokun, Revolver World.

Many are familiar with the term ‘Fairtrade’ however few really understand what it implies and the extent to which it goes to ensure that trade justice in the developing world is served. We hear about Fair Trade bananas, coffee, cotton and even Fair Trade chocolate, but what does it really mean for a product to be ‘Fairtrade’?

As the name implies, Fair Trade aims to ensure that a fair transaction is made between the trader and the buyer. The main purpose of the Fair Trade movement is to ensure sustainability in the developing world whilst helping farmers achieve a fair rate in the Market. The underlying idea aims to offer better trading conditions to the underprivileged farmers, thereby allowing them to be self-sufficient, hence eliminating poverty. It also ensures that child labour is not exercised in the production process and enforces health and safety requirements. » Read more: What Does ‘Fairtrade’ Really Mean?

Article By Paul John Birch
Managing Director, Revolver World
Fairtrade Licensees and producers of Organic Fairtrade Cotton apparel

Conventionally produced cotton has always been associated with slavery and poverty. Today that translates into bonded workers and underemployment, defined by WHO (the World Health Organisation); as people working excessive hours, but struggling to make ends meet.

Pre-dating production in America’s southern states of Georgia and the Carolinas, Samuel Slater had left England under dubious circumstances, establishing himself in Rhode Island as the pioneer of cotton. Cotton was America’s principle industry until the civil war. But it moved south from the upper eastern sea board in search of cheaper labour, and the South had slaves!

Today, in India’s predominantly Christian South, people eke out a living picking cotton. The comparisons become more interesting when you factor-in, that deeply impoverished Christians in America’s black community worked in similar conditions to today’s cotton pickers and growers. Often entire families work side-by-side in temperatures exceeding 40degrees, to earn as little as £2.00 a day.
In a sense the humble T-Shirt, ubiquitous in its design and perception – sums-up, the plight of the cotton producers versus the High street. Lancashire can claim with some legitimacy ownership in the Cotton Industry, but whether Jerusalem was truly builded in this United Kingdom or not, those satanic mills soon became dark as the money and the power were separated by America’s civil war. Although the Union had not entered the war to free slaves, it fit Lincoln’s purpose to issue a Proclamation effectively emancipating black America in the (potentially unlikely) event of a confederate defeat. Britain and France were effectively powerless to intervene to help the South secede. » Read more: Revolver World on Fairtrade Cotton