I pledge to change my drinking habits

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Permalink Reply by Sally Longson on October 14, 2008 at 2:24pm

I was interested to read your pledge about wine...at first I thought it might be to cut down, but was very relieved to read it wasn't. We like to have a glass or two every night with dinner, and do occasionally say, "let's have a week off" and we can do it - the more you do it the easier it gets. But it is nice to have a drink with dinner in the evening...and we don't exactly drink ourselves under the sofa, just enjoy a glass or two watching a bit of telly.

To be honest, being buried deep in our burrow in the country, we tend not to go to pubs that much, due to driving home, and it's never occurred to me in all honesty to ask about fair trade wine when we do, but next time we meet friends for a meal in a pub - which we're more likely to do, rather than just having a drink - I will ask and see what the landlord and staff say and report back.

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Permalink Reply by Sue Browning on October 14, 2008 at 6:43pm

Can I ask a really silly question?

What is unfair about the regular wine trade?

I understand about the need for 'Fair trade' chocolate and coffee and sugar, clothing, etc. to ensure that the producers in the relevant countries have a decent wage and working conditions, but I didn't realise there was a problem with wine.

Of course, I don't know a great deal about it, so please correct me.

Sue Browning
Editing & Proofreading

See - I've read your tip, Karen!)

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Permalink Reply by Karen on October 15, 2008 at 3:35pm

Yes well done Sue you now have a really good inbound link. Oh gosh as an editor and proff reader you must be horrified the way I write. I am indeed a very lazy typer. And very slow too so that's my excuse.

Anyway back to the fair trade wine issue... The wine in question that I now drink..and by heck it's absolutely lovley too .....is Los Robles.
I don't think there is anything at all unfair about other wines dependent on which country it is produced. In many countries such as UK,there are laws governing the national minimum wage and so people are not working for a pittance (although many would argue they are) and taken as slave labour as happens in some third world countries.
(Organic and non organic is another issue worth talking about too but for now we can get some ideas about fair trade wine and other drinks)


I sourced this article on the web ( I have duly emailed the author hoping that he doesn't mind me including the article in the forums here)

Los Robles, Chile: Fair trade winemakers commited to communitiy development

by Miles Litvinoff

December 2005

There’s a growing range of enjoyable Fair Trade wines from the New World on the market. If you’ve ever wondered what makes these brands different from the rest, the award-winning Los Robles label is as good a place as any to start.

Vinos Los Robles is a wine cooperative in Chile’s Curicó valley, a few hours south by bus from the capital Santiago. Owned by its 67 members - small and medium size wine growers - it employs between 80 and 90 people all year round and up to 250 during harvest time. There are not many wine coops left in Chile today - the Pinochet dictatorship put paid to most of them in the 1970s. Los Robles, established in 1943, is one that survived.

The coop’s Fair Trade connection began in 1990 in association with Oxfam Belgium and Max Havelaar Netherlands. Fair Trade links with the UK (Traidcraft), Germany (GEPA) and Switzerland (Claro) followed, and now independent retailers and supermarkets are in on the act. Today 15 to 20 per cent of Los Robles wine is Fairtrade certified, exported to Western Europe, and it’s aiming for 100 per cent certification.
Ecological and Social Fund

The key to Los Robles’s efforts to make its part of the world a better place is its Ecological and Social Fund, established in 2000 with money from the “social premium” (extra payment) that Fair Trade importers pay for its produce. This fund supports an impressive range of activities that benefit not only employees of the cooperative and of its Fairtrade-certified members but also small poor farmers and their households in the surrounding towns and countryside.

Benefits for employees have included major pay rises for the lowest paid, help with home buying and repairs, supplementary health insurance and support during personal and family emergencies. All good stuff, but nothing remarkable for any decent employer perhaps.

But when it comes to working with some of the poorest people in the surrounding communities, and the range of social partnerships that the coop has entered into -- the approach begins to look really impressive.

In partnership with a non-governmental anti-poverty programme, Los Robles supports young graduate agronomists and social workers who live and work with local communities.

Finding that local children were often unable to get to school because private bus drivers did not want to pick them up and collect only a child’s fare (lower than adults’), the coop used money from its Ecological and Social Fund to buy a school bus and donate it to the nearest municipality.

Another project involves using Fair Trade money to help low income people buy land, grow produce and build their own homes. This time the partner is a specialist housing foundation for poor rural areas. The local mayor’s office and community groups have a say in who benefits.

Los Robles also has a joint project with the University of Chile’s social science faculty that supports the formation of student cooperatives in local schools. The aim is to enable school students to experience democratic decision-making and to address problems of low self-esteem that are common among poor rural people. One activity involves students in choosing books and materials to buy for community use.

There’s more. Los Robles uses its Ecological and Social Fund to provide computers and printers for community IT classes for children and adults. There’s a micro-credit scheme and support to local smallholders in the production and domestic marketing of chillies and olives. Los Robles works with the community in lobbying for public works such as riverbank flood defences. It organises transport and visits by smaller wine producers to other growers to improve their skills, and arranges educational outings by bus for low-income mothers and children. There’s support for poorer households in paying university fees for their children too.

Just starting in 2006 is an English teaching programme in local schools – both as a practical skill and to raise self-esteem. The partner for this activity is the University of Northumbria from the UK.

What’s next for Los Robles? Organic production is one target. Another is to see the benefits of its social and environmental programme broadening to include all the 53,000 people who live in the surrounding municipalities. And the coop wants to keep winning prizes for the quality of its wines too.
Notes

Miles Litvinoff interviewed Sergio Allard Neumann, Export Director, Vinos Los Robles, in Santiago, Chile, 22 December 2005.

(C) Miles Litvinoff 2006. This article is from Miles Litvinoff’s forthcoming book with John Madeley, "50 Reasons to Buy Fair Trade".
No permission is needed by Fair Trade organisations to reproduce the article, provided that Miles Litvinoff is acknowledged as the author and notified of its use (miles.litvinoff@phonecoop.coop).

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Permalink Reply by Sue Browning on October 20, 2008 at 6:01pm

Thanks for this article, Karen - it makes interesting reading, and certainly worth thinking about.

Of course many wine dealers, even if they don't market themselves as 'Fair Trade' do actually develop a good relationship with their favourite winemakers and do many of the good things mentioned (minimum wage, education, etc.)

And this goes for some coffee and chocolate too. I buy coffee online, from a dealer who visits the growers personally and regularly tells us about what they are doing to support the workers and the local communities and I used to buy chocolate online from Hotel Chocolate, who do the same. So not all things that aren't specifically labelled as Fair Trade are necessarily unfair.

Sue Browning Editing

PS: Don't worry - I switch off my proofreading head when conversing informally - I'd rather read an interesting but hastily penned post on a forum like this, than a perfect piece of prose that reveals nothing of the writer (not that the two are mutually exclusive, of course), or worse still, have people not contribute for fear that their English )or typing!)is not good enough.

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Permalink Reply by Karen on October 24, 2008 at 8:04pm

Hi Sue

I did actually invite the author Miles Litvinoff , over to the network but unfortunatley he has other commitments at the moment. Oh well maybe he will one day.

Yes I thought maybe to get something going about fair trade in another forum post ....something like " Is it unfair if it's not fairtrade?"
It could make a really good discussion. I think a lot of us get confused with "fairtrade" and I know that that there are people out there who will buy nothing but "fairtrade" which leaves the others who are trading fairly sort of out in the cold.

It's very difficult and I know that nobody wants to buy from companies who use sweatshop labour or damage the environment for want of a quick buck etc yet it is really hard to stay on the right rails sometimes. Don't you agree?
I know there are one or two members on here who also think "fairtrade" is unfair because the people are simply given menial jobs with back breaking work even if they do earn a decent living wage. It really is interesting to hear about different perspectives.

Anyway..... great to hear you don't have your proofreading head on all the time. Your'e exactly right about being perfect and that it can make some people feel intimidated and that's the last thing I would want on this network and forums. I love to read interesting things straight from the heart and with intelligent and wonderfully questioning er er prose! As long as we all know that you are there to help if ever we need it....that's good enough eh?

Karen
Ethical Affiliate

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Permalink Reply by Sue Browning on October 27, 2008 at 9:39pm

The whole ecological/environmentally aware thing is a bit of a minefeld - as you say we all want to avoid encouraging exploitative business practices, but it isn't always possible to be sure what the best way of doing this is.

Equally with carbon offset measures - simply signing up to 'plant a tree' to offset your usage doesn't necessarily have as much effect as you might hope. Better perhaps not to use as much in the first place.

And at the moment some forms of 'alternative' energy are so inefficient (and expensive both in money and resources to make the bits) that it is debateable whether they actually help. But they will...

Sue
Sue Browning Editing

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