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Fairtrade Calculator

Have you ever wondered how much of an impact you could make just by switching one everyday item to a Fair Trade equivalent? Well, the Fairtrade Foundation have made it easy for you with this calculator to celebrate 25 years of the Fairtrade Mark. You simply choose your favourite Fairtrade product (I went with coffee!) and let them know how much of it you consume (I have 2 cups, although sometimes a bit more…) and the handy calculator works out just how many bathtubs that would fill in 25 years, and gives you some really interesting information on how your Fair Trade purchase helps farmers and producers. This is what I learned:

Over 25 years I could drink 18 bathrubs full of Fairtrade coffee and make life better for farmers across the world.
How many bathtubs of coffee do you drink?

Hugo Guerrero is fighting for the future of his family coffee farm. The climate crisis and plummeting coffee prices is making life harder at the Peruvian cooperative his father founded. Extreme weather is making plant diseases more common and more destructive, while market prices for coffee are the lowest in decades.

But thanks to Fairtrade, he is hopeful. ‘Without Fairtrade, we would not be growing coffee. It would not be profitable.’

Cafedirect are one of the companies buying the Guerreros’ beans on Fairtrade terms, meaning they get a much fairer deal and a better price.

Hugo, who studied Agronomy at university, is also introducing new organic farming methods to tackle the climate crisis. And he’s sharing this knowledge with the rest of his cooperative and the local community, leading to positive change across the region.

The Guerrero family can only succeed if we continue to buy Fairtrade coffee – so let’s drink to that!

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Fairtrade Fortnight 2019

This year’s Fairtrade Fortnight (February 25th to March 10th) was themed around cocoa production and also looked at the empowerment of female farmers – about a third of the producers of Divine Chocolate are women, so they deserve a say!

10 children pose in football grounds, two holding a fair trade ball each and sitting on top of a giant ballTo celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight, Rainbow Turtle organised two schools conferences. For local primary school pupils, we arranged a visit to St Mirren Park, to hear from Bala Sport (who produce Fairtrade footballs), WOSDEC, St Mirren Women’s Football Club, and from Rainbow Turtle. It was a great day, with lots of learning about the work that goes into making a football, the benefits of Fairtrade for football workers, and also the parallel difficulties of being a female farmer/producer and a woman in sport. And the amazing news to come out of the event is that St Mirren WFC are now using Fairtrade footballs for their matches!

a pupil asks a fair trade coffee farmer a questionFor secondary school pupils, Rainbow Turtle, in conjunction with the Scottish Fair Trade Forum, organised for Aimable Nshimiye, a coffee producer from Rwanda, to visit Mary Russell School and speak about his business and how becoming Fairtrade certified has helped them to grow. The Mary Russell pupils had thought up some interesting questions for Aimable in advance! Rainbow Turtle are very grateful to the Renfrewshire Fair Trade Steering Group for their support in organising this event, as well as the one at St Mirren Park.

fair trade cakesOther activities which took place during Fairtrade Fortnight 2019 included a Fairtrade Bake Off at Gryffe High School, which we were lucky enough to be asked to help judge – look at those amazing cakes! The winner (which we don’t have a picture off because it was scoffed too quickly!) was judged to be best because of its delicious taste, its perfect appearance, and most importantly its high quantity of Fairtrade ingredients!

It was fantastic fortnight, and so encouraging to see the real engagement with Fairtrade Fortnight and the ideas of Fair Trade that so many local schools and organisations have!