Phil Fehrle

Recent Activity

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  Phil signed the petition | over 2 years ago

  Being a Woman Is Not a Pre-Existing Condition
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  Phil commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

  What is Fair Trade?

  What is Fair Trade to me?  To me it is a way to achieve certain social justice objectives for farmers and artisans in developing countries by effectively utilizing our free enterprise system in the United States.
  
  By way of background, I have over forty years in the television and motion picture business in Los Angeles.  A widower for the past six years, I recently married a Peruvian woman.  As I wind down my career in entertainment, I’m planning a second career in social justice.  The specific area is Fair Trade.  The specific locale is Peru.
  
  For the past four years, I have been chair of the Mission Committee at my church (First Presbyterian in Burbank, CA).  In this role I’ve been introduced to many worthy causes that cry out for support.  None has captured my imagination as much as the Fair Trade movement.  It provides education and support to indigenous peoples in developing countries, empowering them to create sustainable lives.  Its socio-economic model promotes fair prices, fair labor conditions, opportunities for marketplace leverage, democratic and transparent self-governance, community development and environmental sustainability.
  
  So, why did Fair Trade capture my imagination, instead of some other cause?  Because it’s a wonderful, rational, sensible movement (supported by hundreds of thousands of well-meaning people and organizations) that hasn’t even scratched the surface of meeting the needs of the people it’s designed to serve.  It is one of the best kept secrets of the Western Hemisphere.  After being around for over twenty years, Fair Trade languishes for lack support in the cultural main stream.  It tends to live at the fringes.  Most people think it’s only about coffee.  Or worse, they confuse Fair Trade with the so-called “free trade” agreements between the U.S. and our neighbors to the South.   (Happily, Europe gets it! The Fair Trade movement there is huge.) Right now, one of the hardest questions to answer is “Where can I buy Fair Trade items?”
  
  As a mechanism to empower indigenous farmers and artisans, Fair Trade provides great value.  As a mechanism to provide a living for American retailers in America, it fails because it’s not market-driven.  People tend to make Fair Trade purchases because of a sense of social justice, not because the impulse to buy is prompted by the quality or attractiveness of the product itself.  And why is this?  Because Fair Trade is too often regarded as a charity.  Fair Trade began in the NGO world, and it is stuck in the NGO world.  Even many of the stores that handle Fair Trade items (Ten Thousand Villages, for example) tend to be non-profits, utilizing volunteers behind the counters.  This is not the way American commerce works.  Nothing can succeed without market impetus and support.   It’s my contention that until Fair Trade proponents in this country can prosper as retailers, Fair Trade will continue to languish.  I believe Fair Trade’s inability to gain traction in the marketplace is due to a lack of availability of product and a lack of effective marketing. 
  
  So, I see a real opportunity to expand a market and help people along the way.  I want to prove that a person can actually make a living (not a killing, just a living) selling Fair Trade goods.  I want to increase Fair Trade’s exposure to Main Street America.  I want to help create a market for Fair Trade goods, so that the social justice aspect of a purchase and the consumer satisfaction aspect of the purchase are equal.
  
  My wife, Luz, and I have created a business called Fair Trade Express.   In addition to importing and selling Fair Trade products from Peru, we want to serve as a clearing house for anyone interested in Fair Trade products, Sweat Free products and products that reflect Environmental Sustainability.  Initially we will sell our products at festivals and farmers markets until we learn the business.  Then we hope to open a store in Long Beach.  If we’re successful, we want to help other socially conscious merchants replicate our experience.