Why we need to support Fair trade teas
 

I am providing a link to a series of pictures of workers in Indian tea
gardens.

While we enjoy our tea and concentrate on flavor and other nuances we
are largely oblivious to the plight of the tea producers.

See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...uth_asia_india
_tea_workers/html/1.stm


While tea snobs can certainly not solve all the problems of the Tea
Industry perhaps purchasing fair trade teas may be one small step
towards helping them.

Roland

Joe Doe wrote:
> I am providing a link to a series of pictures of workers in Indian tea
> gardens.
>
> While we enjoy our tea and concentrate on flavor and other nuances we
> are largely oblivious to the plight of the tea producers.
>
> See:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...uth_asia_india
> _tea_workers/html/1.stm
>
>
> While tea snobs can certainly not solve all the problems of the Tea
> Industry perhaps purchasing fair trade teas may be one small step
> towards helping them.
>
> Roland

Joe Doe wrote:
> I am providing a link to a series of pictures of workers in Indian tea
> gardens.
>
> While we enjoy our tea and concentrate on flavor and other nuances we
> are largely oblivious to the plight of the tea producers.
>
> See:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...uth_asia_india
> _tea_workers/html/1.stm
>
>
> While tea snobs can certainly not solve all the problems of the Tea
> Industry perhaps purchasing fair trade teas may be one small step
> towards helping them.
>
> Roland

Fair trade tea has been discussed in this forum more than ten times.
The most recent time was last month. One nice thing about tea
drinkers, they tend to be polite. Toci

Joe 7/14/05


> I am providing a link to a series of pictures of workers in Indian tea
> gardens.
>
> While we enjoy our tea and concentrate on flavor and other nuances we
> are largely oblivious to the plight of the tea producers.
>
> See:
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...uth_asia_india
> _tea_workers/html/1.stm
>
>
> While tea snobs can certainly not solve all the problems of the Tea
> Industry perhaps purchasing fair trade teas may be one small step
> towards helping them.
>
> Roland

Here here, and thanks, Roland. Fair trade might also mean being willing to
pay enough money for the tea so that the workers can earn a decent amount.
I'm of course not talking about just paying high prices per se. More to
learn.

Michael

It's always good to be on your toes in the commercial world. Toici

You could allow more Indians with green cards to work in the IS
industry displacing domestic workers. The infrastructure and labor of
the oil producing countries of the Middle East are Indian. Where's
there is money there are Indians. India can handle it's own labor
problems. This is nothing more than a guilt trip like starving
children who want me to give up part of my tea allowance so they can
eat some of the white bread which won't sell because of the Atkins
diet.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:
> Joe 7/14/05
>
>
> > I am providing a link to a series of pictures of workers in Indian tea
> > gardens.
> >
> > While we enjoy our tea and concentrate on flavor and other nuances we
> > are largely oblivious to the plight of the tea producers.
> >
> > See:
> >
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...uth_asia_india
> > _tea_workers/html/1.stm
> >
> >
> > While tea snobs can certainly not solve all the problems of the Tea
> > Industry perhaps purchasing fair trade teas may be one small step
> > towards helping them.
> >
> > Roland
>
> Here here, and thanks, Roland. Fair trade might also mean being willing to
> pay enough money for the tea so that the workers can earn a decent amount.
> I'm of course not talking about just paying high prices per se. More to
> learn.
>
> Michael

Space 7/15/05


> You could allow more Indians with green cards to work in the IS
> industry displacing domestic workers. The infrastructure and labor of
> the oil producing countries of the Middle East are Indian. Where's
> there is money there are Indians. India can handle it's own labor
> problems. This is nothing more than a guilt trip like starving
> children who want me to give up part of my tea allowance so they can
> eat some of the white bread which won't sell because of the Atkins
> diet.
>
> Jim


Jim,

Why, you saw right through me. Your astute analysis shows me and the Indians
up. So, when did you develop this profound respect for Indian people? I'm
sure you meant nothing biased in your pronouncements.

Michael

Historically Indian jobs are always overseas. They work hard and send
money back home. They should be willing to buy fair trade teas. Our
local news is a story of an Saudi family who kept an Indian woman a
virtual slave for domestic and love chores. I blame the IS problem on
Bill Gates who cried before Congress about a shortage of IS and now is
developing half of the next Windows release in India. I need to switch
to Linux.

Jim

Michael Plant wrote:
> Space 7/15/05
>
>
> > You could allow more Indians with green cards to work in the IS
> > industry displacing domestic workers. The infrastructure and labor of
> > the oil producing countries of the Middle East are Indian. Where's
> > there is money there are Indians. India can handle it's own labor
> > problems. This is nothing more than a guilt trip like starving
> > children who want me to give up part of my tea allowance so they can
> > eat some of the white bread which won't sell because of the Atkins
> > diet.
> >
> > Jim
>
>
> Jim,
>
> Why, you saw right through me. Your astute analysis shows me and the Indians
> up. So, when did you develop this profound respect for Indian people? I'm
> sure you meant nothing biased in your pronouncements.
>
> Michael

Funny you should mention Linux. I've been toying with that idea myself,
but, as was called to my attention, it would require my starting a brand new
hobby with lots of steep learning curve, and tea is about as intellectual as
I get.

BTW, I spent some time in India some time ago, and I did see a couple people
working at local jobs, so they can't all be IS'ers or be working overseas,
eh?

Michael

Space 7/15/05


> Historically Indian jobs are always overseas. They work hard and send
> money back home. They should be willing to buy fair trade teas. Our
> local news is a story of an Saudi family who kept an Indian woman a
> virtual slave for domestic and love chores. I blame the IS problem on
> Bill Gates who cried before Congress about a shortage of IS and now is
> developing half of the next Windows release in India. I need to switch
> to Linux.
>
> Jim
>
> Michael Plant wrote:
>> Space 7/15/05
>>
>>
>>> You could allow more Indians with green cards to work in the IS
>>> industry displacing domestic workers. The infrastructure and labor of
>>> the oil producing countries of the Middle East are Indian. Where's
>>> there is money there are Indians. India can handle it's own labor
>>> problems. This is nothing more than a guilt trip like starving
>>> children who want me to give up part of my tea allowance so they can
>>> eat some of the white bread which won't sell because of the Atkins
>>> diet.
>>>
>>> Jim
>>
>>
>> Jim,
>>
>> Why, you saw right through me. Your astute analysis shows me and the Indians
>> up. So, when did you develop this profound respect for Indian people? I'm
>> sure you meant nothing biased in your pronouncements.
>>
>> Michael
>

I posted this link last month. But here it is again:
http://www.transfairusa.org/

Michael's concern is a valid one, indeed. But this is why Transfair
(and I am not affiliated with them in any way) is the indepenedent
not-for-profit agency that certifies products as fair trade. So the
most sure way to ensure that the product you are buying is fair trade
is to buy ones that are *certified* fair trade by transfair.

I am not as familiar with Tea trade as with coffee trade, but in the
coffee realm WTO has been dispensing "wise" advice to countries in
Latin America, Asia and Africa to grow more coffee. This has resulted
in overproduction of coffee, with supply greatly exceeding the demand.
This has allowed the coffee distributors to pay farmers as little as
they wanted, knowing that they had no choice but to settle for any
price they would give them. Interestingly, this did not result in
savings for consumers. Starbucks (before it started to carry *some*
fair trade coffee) used to pay $1.39/lb of coffee, which is above the
minimum of $1.26/lb required by transfair. The problem is that they
were paying this to the middleman, who paid a tiny fraction of this to
the actual growers. So the problem was simply that they did not want
to re-shuffle their procurement system. Fair trade simply insures that
the growers earn a living wage. This is not about luxury, folks! It's
a matter of life and death.

As far as teas, I believe it's a similar situation. And I don't think
it's exclusive to India. The In Pursuit of Tea folks report the dire
conditions in many areas of China, where farmers simply abandon their
farms and move to cities, because they can no longer survive with the
kind of income they are getting from the tea business. But there is
little fair trade tea from China. Rishi has some Yunnan black and
Puergh teas that are certified fair trade. But that's about that.
IPOT also claims to pay the farmers a fair price, but their teas are
not fair trade certified.

Speaking of which, anybody knows of any other retails that carry fair
trade certified Chinese or Taiwanese teas? I'd love to find out of
places where I can get such teas, if possible.

Best,

Maxim

Michael Plant wrote:

> >
> Yes, indeed. And so it should again. Question: Can we rely upon the fair
> trade dealers to truly support fair working conditions, or is "fair trade,"
> at least in some cases, a marketing ploy? I think Ripon has some
> interesting insights and observations in this area, and I wish he were here
> to share them.
>
> Michael

Ahhh, the joys of capitalism. If the price is low enough to make
chinese farmers quit producing tea, than prices will rise as the amount
of tea produced drops, then more people will want to grow tea, then
prices fall, the price is low enough to make chinese farmers quit
producing tea, than prices will rise as the amount of tea produced
drops, then more people will want to grow tea, then prices fall, the
price is low enough to make chinese farmers quit producing tea, and so
on and so forth. (in general) I say good luck if you want the world to
be fair for everyone, it's just not going to happen.

Well, I doubt that the world will be fair for everyone -- ever. That's
hardly the point of fair trade. As consumers, we vote with our
wallets: either for change or for more of the same. If I am offered an
option to support the business of a company that sells fair trade
certified products and is therefore being a socially responsible
capitalist, then I would like to vote for that.

As a professor of business, my sense is that unbridled capitalism is
not nearly as rational or "good" as we are often led to believe. It
needs to be channelled and guided in order to offer the most benefits
to the most people. Otherwise, it just causes destruction for most and
benefits for a select few.

In the ideal world things would be as TeaDave describes. But they are
not.

Maxim Voronov wrote:
> As far as teas, I believe it's a similar situation. And I
> don't think it's exclusive to India. The In Pursuit of Tea
> folks report the dire conditions in many areas of China, where
> farmers simply abandon their farms and move to cities, because
> they can no longer survive with the kind of income they are
> getting from the tea business.

There are no tea peasants in Japan. And since I drink mostly
Japanese, I don't have to take my tea with lumps of guilt.

--crymad

See if Seven Cups is fair traded. They claim something like that, plus
organic, but I didn't see a certification claim. Toci

Any contrived system of price support fails in the long run. I think
Karl Marx was correct you do have to account for labor in the end. Our
model of Unionism and Management is more successful than Communism. So
are you a good boy and only shop at stores with a Union?

Jim

Maxim Voronov wrote:
> Well, I doubt that the world will be fair for everyone -- ever. That's
> hardly the point of fair trade. As consumers, we vote with our
> wallets: either for change or for more of the same. If I am offered an
> option to support the business of a company that sells fair trade
> certified products and is therefore being a socially responsible
> capitalist, then I would like to vote for that.
>
> As a professor of business, my sense is that unbridled capitalism is
> not nearly as rational or "good" as we are often led to believe. It
> needs to be channelled and guided in order to offer the most benefits
> to the most people. Otherwise, it just causes destruction for most and
> benefits for a select few.
>
> In the ideal world things would be as TeaDave describes. But they are
> not.

Jim,

Indeed, I do try to shop just in stores with a union. Unfortunately,
in the US if you limit yourself to just those stores, you'll starve to
death, becaue you won't be able to buy groceries, as most of them are
quite fond of union busting. And yes, I agree that Union and
Management model works better than "Communism", the way it was
implemented (it was actually never implemented, except maybe in Israeli
Kibutzen (sp?), where it seemed to work fine). Unfortunately, there is
a real war on unions in the US. But I digress.... ;)

Space Cowboy wrote:
> Any contrived system of price support fails in the long run. I think
> Karl Marx was correct you do have to account for labor in the end. Our
> model of Unionism and Management is more successful than Communism. So
> are you a good boy and only shop at stores with a Union?
>
> Jim

Thanks, Toci! I'll check them out.

Maxim

toci wrote:
> See if Seven Cups is fair traded. They claim something like that, plus
> organic, but I didn't see a certification claim. Toci

On 15 Jul 2005 05:27:35 -0700
"Space Cowboy" > wrote:

> You could allow more Indians with green cards to work in the IS
> industry displacing domestic workers. The infrastructure and labor of
> the oil producing countries of the Middle East are Indian. Where's
> there is money there are Indians. India can handle it's own labor
> problems. This is nothing more than a guilt trip like starving
> children who want me to give up part of my tea allowance so they can
> eat some of the white bread which won't sell because of the Atkins
> diet.


Actually . . . .=20

The pro bakers I know say that from their perspective, Atkins is more or
less a thing of the past. Their business has picked back up, as of about 9
months ago. People no longer come into the bakery and whine about how they
don't have any good low-carb donuts. They just buy the =E9clair and walk aw=
ay
happy.=20

One of them said his distributor started including free 40lb bags of
low-carb ingredients with all his orders. Ingredients that have expired
already.=20

Oddly enough, the books are still selling. Perhaps everyone is at stage
three?=20

I agree though. India is not the third world country it's made out to
be, and they can handle it. They'd be insulted if you suggested otherwise.=
=20

Michael Plant > wrote in
:

> Funny you should mention Linux. I've been toying with that idea
> myself, but, as was called to my attention, it would require my
> starting a brand new hobby with lots of steep learning curve, and tea
> is about as intellectual as I get.

Eh. It's not so hard. If I can do it...

I still use MS-Windows quite a bit, but I plan to move completely to
something else someday, whether it be Linux or some other option. I lost
trust in the Microsoft Way a long time ago.

Just grab a Knoppix CD. Boot with it once in a while. Take your time.
Have fun with it. Work is grueling, but play is liberating.

http://www.knoppix.org/

Or not. But the option is there, and getting easier all the time.

Oh yeah. I support fair trade too, and I share the concern whether it is
for real or just a "marketing ploy". I like tea, but mixed with milk,
sometimes, and never misery.

--
fD
"God's not on our side 'cause he hates idiots also."
-- Clint Eastwood as Blondie (_The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly_)

"Space Cowboy" > wrote in
oups.com:

> I need to switch to Linux.

Please see my response to Mr. Plant. And have a good day, you old
curmudgeon, you.

--
fD
"God's not on our side 'cause he hates idiots also."
-- Clint Eastwood as Blondie (_The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly_)

Hi,
May be for coffee, bananas and so on the Fair Trade works but as
concerns tea, whenever I gave a try, I found myself drinking poor
stuff which I had paid more than correcly. You might think I'm stupid
but I do believe it's not fair.

Karel


On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 16:53:12 -0500, Joe Doe >
wrote:

>I am providing a link to a series of pictures of workers in Indian tea
>gardens.
>
>While we enjoy our tea and concentrate on flavor and other nuances we
>are largely oblivious to the plight of the tea producers.
>
>See:
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...uth_asia_india
>_tea_workers/html/1.stm
>
>
>While tea snobs can certainly not solve all the problems of the Tea
>Industry perhaps purchasing fair trade teas may be one small step
>towards helping them.
>
>Roland

"Karel Valter" > wrote in message

> May be for coffee, bananas and so on the Fair Trade works but as
> concerns tea, whenever I gave a try, I found myself drinking poor
> stuff which I had paid more than correcly. You might think I'm stupid
> but I do believe it's not fair.

There are excellent teas from Taiwan and Japan. They are all fair trade, you
can be sure.

Kuri

>> Funny you should mention Linux. I've been toying with that idea myself,
>> but, as was called to my attention, it would require my starting a brand
>> new hobby with lots of steep learning curve, and tea is about as
>> intellectual as I get.
>
> Eh. It's not so hard. If I can do it...

Instead of Knoppix try Mepis if you want to have a complete Linux system,
running from a CD only, no hard disk required. If you really want to be
light and elegant, try Slax (www.slax.org), then you are flying and you
also have more time for tea.

JB