Jacqueline DeCarlo

Recent Activity

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  Jacqueline signed the petition | 10 months ago

  Turn a 30-year-old Organic Farm in Maryland into a Food Education Hub, Not Soccer Fields
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  Jacqueline signed the petition | 12 months ago

  Save AmeriCorps
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  Jacqueline commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  Small-Farmer vs. Plantation

  First a big thank you, Zarah, for keeping this dialogue going and for all the other great posts you've been sharing of late.
  
  It is always good to read the analysis of Equal Exchange, and its supporters, who have contributed so much to shaping the principles of Fair Trade.  I'm also glad that TransFair USA offered its view on plantations, especially because its recent strategic review pledges a return to a farmer focus while also reasserting its claim that the Fair Trade system needs to evolve beyond the smallholder focus. 
  
  I do think TransFair's point about opening up opportunities to landless workers is an important one.  A recent book by many of the folks at the Center for Fair and Alternative Trade Studies, "Fair Trade: the Challenges of Transforming Globalization" has a chapter on the role Fair Trade plantations have played in expanding opportunities in post-apartheid South Africa to those who don't own their own land. 
  
  What's problematic, of course, is when plantations are run in ways that almost mock the aims of Fair Trade and when the Fair Trade certification system is unable (or some would say unwilling) to monitor and remedy situations. If the Fair Trade certifying system has, as some of your posts indicate, come so far so fast without being able to back up its claims at regulating participants, then we need to find ways to slow down and shore up what's right about the system and fix what's wrong.
  
  This concern is at the forefront of my mind as word begins to spread that a new multinational licensee for bananas will enter the US market soon.  In the tea debate, we heard from a Kenyan tea farmer about the benefits of FT.   I hope that with bananas and flowers and other products, Zarah, you'll be able to keep doing all the great outreach that allows farmer voices to explain their actual experiences.  You already mention in this space the good work of  ILRF. I would commend the work of US Leap, which promotes workers rights in Latin America, to help us understand who is really benefiting from plantation certification.  The members of farmer organizations and associations such as IFAT--The World Fair Trade Organization can also help us as consumer learn how and why Fair Trade certification (as opposed to or alongside certifiers such as Rainforest Alliance) makes the most sense for transforming trade for the benefit of all.
  
  Thanks again for keeping these issues out there!
  
  

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  Jacqueline commented on the article | about 3 years ago

  For Obama, Honest Tea is the Best Policy

  Hi Zarah,
  
  You know I'm all for this push (and for the occasional read of "People" magazine, BTW). I just want to throw into the mix that Honest Tea was originally founded in Bethesda, Maryland just up the road from the White House.  If we DC area residents are going to get our new neighbors to bring Fair Trade into the White House we'll need to get some local business folks on our side too!
  
  Jackie