What is it that makes me uncomfortable with seeing roses from Africa sold for Valentine’s day in UK supermarkets with a Fairtrade branding?

According to an article in The Guardian, the cutflower industry is now Kenya’s second-largest exporter. The article points out that the involvement of the Fairtrade movement has improved the financial return to the local economy, and has helped mitigate the local environmental impact of intensive agriculture and the migration of labour. But is it what Fairtrade should be about?

The Fairtrade Foundation has put up a defence of the practice, basically arguing that if UK consumers are going to buy African flowers anyway, they may as well be given the option to buy Fairtrade.

However, the international transport of any goods – even Fairtrade – damages the environment. Transporting highly-perishable goods such as cut flowers by air is particularly damaging, and seems particularly unnecessary. Will the offspring of today’s Valentine’s day lovers thank their parents for exchanging Tesco’s Fairtrade Kenyan roses, as the oil runs out and the climate runs amok?

Other Fairtrade staples like chocolate and coffee are also luxury products, but at least they have no locally produced equivalent in the west. You either source them overseas, or you do without (which eco-extremists might argue is the right thing to do).

The long term hope is that Fairtrade acts as a catalyst for internal economic growth within developing economies, and these issues disappear. Aarong in Bangladesh has benefited from being a Traidcraft supplier, but now sells more within the country to the emerging middle classes – the M&S of Bangladesh.

The challenge for Aarong and similar organisations ongoing will be to resist the pressure to start global sourcing. Who remembers the days when M&S boasted it sourced most of its products within the UK – and how long did that survive the challenge of globalisation?

In the meantime – Happy Valentine’s Day – and how about making do with a card – or better still a text, which might shake a few electrons but otherwise should have no environmental impact?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 at 7:07 am and is filed under Greenery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.