Get Involved With Fairtrade Fortnight

Have you ever wondered where the food you buy comes from? From 26 February to 11 March, Fairtrade Fortnight will aim to help bring more awareness to where food comes from and the farmers behind this food.

The theme of this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight is ‘Come on in to Fairtrade’ and it aims to allow people to see the lives of the farmers and workers who provide food for Fairtrade. By choosing to buy food that is certified Fairtrade means that you can help to ensure that farmers across the world get a much better deal than normal.

What Is Fairtrade?

The Fairtrade Foundation was founded in 1992 and representing the UK, works in the global Fairtrade movement to deliver change by encouraging businesses, consumers and campaigners to deliver trade that works for farmers and workers across the world. It actively works to ensure that farmers and workers are able to secure a better deal every time.

This is done by ensuring that farmers and workers in developing countries get better prices for their produce along with decent working conditions and a fair deal every time. By doing this, it can help to empower the producers to combat poverty along with strengthening their position and allowing them to take more control over their lives in regards to producing food.

By partnering with Fairtrade, it ensures that food produced meets the social, economic and environmental standards that are set by both employers and the farmers and workers. This can include protection of workers’ rights and environment. It also certifies products and ingredients to ensure that standards have been met.

There are many companies that also choose to create their own sustainability programmes and Fairtrade works directly with them to ensure that they share the same core values. It can also lobby the government to demand that farmers in developing countries receive fair treatments.

This is important as there are over 1.65 million farmers and workers work in Fairtrade certified producer organisations and there are 1,226 Fairtrade certified producer organisations operating in 74 countries, making it a truly global effort.

How Can You Get Involved In Fairtrade Fortnight?

While Fairtrade Fortnight is two weeks that aim to highlight how important the work of Fairtrade is, it’s important to remember that it’s still a year round effort that continues without much acclaim. Make sure to follow the Fairtrade social media to keep up to date on all the hard work that goes on, but for now why not consider watching the below video on Samuel, a coffer farmer who is from Kenya to see one of the farmers who works hard to bring produce.

Perhaps the simplest way to get involved with Fairtrade Fortnight is to ensure that you buy food and drink that is certified Fairtrade. By doing so, you are helping to enrich the life of the people who grew the bananas you eat or the coffee beans you drink.

It’s simple and easy for an office to get involved with Fairtrade Fortnight. Consider organising an event that will bring awareness to the movement and could even encourage others to buy Fairtrade. You could also turn your office kitchen Fairtrade as here on OPInfo we have a range of food and drink available that is Fairtrade certified, so why not take a look at the range which includes sugar, coffee and tea.