Happy Fair Trade Month

Well, it’s finally fall again in North West Indiana. This season has a lot to bring to the table. The leaves are changing color and falling off of their branches. The farmers are beginning to prepare for harvest, and many families are decorating for the upcoming holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving. However the month of October brings more than just beautiful foliage and trick-or-treating. As a matter of fact, October is national Fair Trade Month!In honor of this year’s 8th annual Fair Trade Month, The Welcome Mat would like to share some facts about what Fair Trade is and how it started.

Many consider the beginnings of fair trade to be in the 1940’s with Edna Ruth Byler, a volunteer for the Mennonite Central Committee. She witnessed the poverty of artisans in Puerto Rico and began to sell their products in her hometown in Pennsylvania. She sold the needlework out of the trunk of her car, until she and her colleague Ruth Lederach became the first fair traders by bringing the products to the Mennonite world conference in Switzerland.

They started the first fair trade shop in 1958, and in 1968 became “SELFHELP: Crafts of the world," then in 1972 opened the first American World Shop in Bluffton, Ohio. A World Shop is a store such as The Welcome Mat specifically made to sell Fair Trade products from around the globe. In 1996 the name was changed to Ten Thousand Villages, and is now one of the most well known Fair Trade enterprises.

Fair Trade has been spreading through America and Europe with continual development of Fair Trade enterprises. The term Fair Trade was first coined in the 80’s. Before that the phenomenon was most often referred to as “Alternative Trade”.

However, it was not just the fair trade of crafts that developed so strongly, but of agricultural products as well. When you say the term “Fair Trade” most people who have heard of the movement first think of coffee before anything else. While concerns about the ethics of agricultural trade had already been in existence for some time, it wasn’t until 1989 that the first fair trade coffee label Max Havelaar was issued in the Netherlands. Since then other fair trade produce has become available such as tea, sugar, and fruit.

The Fair Trade story is continuing to this day. Fair Trade stores, companies, and products are being developed across the globe. For more information on the history of fair trade and how you can participate in the 8th annual Fair Trade Month, visit the following websites.

http://www.fair-trade-hub.com/history-of-fair-trade.html
http://www.bluepeoplefairtrade.com/history-of-fair-trade/
http://fairtradefederation.org/ht/d/sp/i/178/pid/178
http://transfairusa.org/get-involved/blog/welcome-fair-trade-month

To read more from The Valparaiso International Center, click here!