The Fairtrade Guernsey Blog

Archive for January, 2010

There has been world-wide concern about the extreme suffering in Haiti, an already severely impoverished country. And Guernsey has already shown itself to be as caring and generous as ever, with so many people giving financial help. It is good to learn that The Fairtrade Foundation will support any activity to help its producers and partners. Offers of donations to the producers are much appreciated, however food and water are the primary needs at the moment. Development organisations are best placed to meet these needs so please do continue to refer enquirers to the disaster fund websites such as the Disaster Emergencies Committee at http://www.dec.org.uk

Dominican Republic producers also help. Fairtrade certified producers in the nearby Dominican Republic have offered support. Producers (Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade) have formed a commission which is trying to work out how help can be organized. The Fairtrade producers of coffee, cocoa and bananas and the non-Fairtrade banana producers have started contributing with funds. They have started sending water and medication. Next, in addition to water they will also send food and bananas in lorries. In the next months the farmers plan on helping to rebuild houses destroyed.

Good news for Fairtrade Chocolate lovers, the choice is getting even bigger with the news that Green and Black are converting their entire range to Fairtrade. Green & Black’s maya Gold was the first chocolate to carry the Fairtrade mark back in 1994 so it is good to see that the rest of the range is finally catching up.  Green & Black is owned by Cadbury now, so lets hope the proposed takeover by Kraft (who support the Rainbow alliance certification) does not adversely affect these plans.  More inf is on the Fairtrade Foundation website. Any other observation or comments are always welcome.

The Fairtrade Foundation have announced the arrival of the first Fairtrade certified Melons in UK Supermarkets this week. Hopefully we will see them in Guernsey supermarkets before long. Watch this space.

There is a new online community for Fairtrade Town (and Island) supporters to exchange news and views – find it here .

Learn about how Costa are stopping the option of Fairtrade Coffee, and see ideas and activities from all round the world. It’s quick and easy to register and then you can take part in the discussions.

Phil

Welcome to our new blog, reporting and informing you on events concerning Fairtrade in Guernsey. With Fairtrade Fortnight just around the corner (22 Feb – 7 March) we will be posting lots of info about events happening (including The Big Swap) and keeping you updated as things develop. We hope to have a very interactive blog so please comment and if you’d like to contribute as a guest writer, please get in touch with us.