Split From Fairtrade International
On September 15, 2011, Fair Trade USA announced that it would split off from its international peers and Fairtrade International in Bonn. Chief Executive Paul Rice says it will be easier to make business-friendly decisions and double fair-trade sales by 2015. On the heels of this announcement, Fair Trade USA launched a new set of standards called Fair Trade For All. As part of this strategy, Fair Trade USA launched pilot projects to extend their certification mark to groups in the coffee industry that are currently excluded by FLO standards: plantations and unassociated smallholder farmers. At the same time, Fair Trade USA launched Co-Op Link, and initiative that FTUSA claims will strengthen producer organizations by providing cooperatives with increased market opportunity in the U.S., improved access to capital and an expanded range of capacity building and quality improvement initiatives.
Paul Rice told Triple Pundit: “The challenge for us all now is how we can evolve the Fair Trade model in order to make it bigger, more scalable and to have greater impact on hard working farmers and farm workers around the world. And so toward that end we’ve recently launched Fair Trade for All, which is our effort to evolve and innovate the Fair Trade model in order to make it more scalable. ‘Innovation for impact’ is really the way we’re thinking about it.
Fair Trade USA announced a partnership with Scientific Certification Systems on September 27, 2011 to conduct audits and certify new producer groups that now will be able to join the Fair Trade movement.
Read more about this topic: Fair Trade USA
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