Category: Farmworkers

205. Fair Trade for All: Will a rising tide lift all boats?

2011-10-10 Comments Off on 205. Fair Trade for All: Will a rising tide lift all boats?

In a wide-ranging conversation with CRS staff last week, Fair Trade USA CEO Paul Rice defended the decision to break with FLO and open the U.S. market for Fair Trade Certified coffee to estates.  He suggested there are two theories about what will happen to smallholder farmer cooperatives once estates enter the market.  One theory is the zero-sum view that the estates’ […]

204. Paul Rice makes the case for Fair Trade for All

2011-10-06 Comments Off on 204. Paul Rice makes the case for Fair Trade for All

Paul Rice, the Yale graduate who spent more than a decade as a swashbuckling cooperative organizer in wartime Nicaragua before he became the CEO of Fair Trade USA, spent three hours at CRS headquarters yesterday making the case for his most daring gamble yet — withdrawing from FLO and embarking on the ambitious new Fair […]

201. Fair Trade USA – FLO split: What does it mean for smallholders?

2011-09-30 Comments Off on 201. Fair Trade USA – FLO split: What does it mean for smallholders?

The joint announcement by Fair Trade USA and FLO that the two organizations will be going their separate ways at the end of this year is old news by now.  It is still not entirely clear, however, what the split — and Fair Trade USA’s “Fair Trade for All” initiative, with its promise to “adapt […]