For Nestle
this is a cheap public relations trip to undermine the Nestle boycott – the
biggest consumer boycott of any single product in the UK. For the Fairtrade
Foundation, it undermines its reputation and will undoubtedly damage the
success of fairtrade.
Please take action. Read on for problems
with Nestle obtaining a fair trade label:
- Nestle has recently been found the ‘least responsible’ global corporation, subject to a boycott from for its aggressive marketing of baby milk formula which leads the deaths of millions infants in places where water is unsafe. See Baby Milk Action for more info: www.babymilkaction.org.
- Fairtrade aims to end the marginalisation of small-scale farmers in response to the corporatisation of the global food supply. Large corporations like Nestle have driven farmers across the world out of business with savage supplier relations.
- Farmers are replaced with plantation workers, slaving in poor conditions for a pittance. Nestle is still pursuing these tactics with all of its other coffee brands, and as such is the antithesis of fairtrade. Its fairtrade label does not signify a change of heart but a brutal marketing strategy to rescue Nescafe from its boycott image.
- Fairtrade should be against corporate dominance, and in favour of a different more sustainable way of producing and trading, where all profits go back to communities rather than into the pockets of Western shareholders.
- Even if corporations guarantee workers a fair price for their labour, they still have the power
to drive currently existing fairtrade cooperatives out of business because of their enormous influence over marketing and placing.
- This announcement comes in the same month trade unionists in the Philippines mourn the death of the leader of a protest at the Nestle factory, who was assassinated; as trade unionists from Colombia gather in Switzerland to present evidence of Nestle's links to paramilitaries; and as a campaign is launched in the US
over its alleged "involvement in the trafficking, torture, and forced
labor of children who cultivate and harvest cocoa beans".
- The system seems designed to continue the dependence on Third World producers as providers of
cheaper commodities to the First World, as all the processing, it seems,
will continue to be done elsewhere.
The
Fairtrade Foundation quotes the case of Salvadorian coffee farmers who benefit
from Nestle’s new product line:
“in
2000 they were being offered just 45 cents per pound of coffee by local traders.
They could not recoup the cost of producing their own crop and experienced
severe hardship, resulting in some having to abandon their own farms to become
hired labourers for larger farm owners.”
This
completely ignores the fact that it was Nestle, and companies like it, which
drove down coffee prices, and continue to do this in all their other product
lines.
Take
Action
Email
or write to the Head of the Fairtrade Foundation Harriet Lamb. A sample letter
is below, but feel free to adapt.
The
Fairtrade Foundation
Room 204
16
Baldwin's Gardens
London
EC1N 7RJ
Dear
Harriet
I am
deeply disappointed with the Fairtrade Foundation’s recent decision to grant a
Nestle product line fairtrade status. I believe that this is a betrayal of the principles
of fairtrade, which I have supported for a long time now. I believe this
decision undermines the principles of fairtrade, and will also undermine your
reputation. I myself no longer feel able to trust your label, and will have to
be more discerning in future.
Yours,
That’s very interesting. I heard about Nestle doing this just this morning. Thanks for the post. I am also concerned about globalization due to issues raised in the book “What Liberal Media?”
Posted by: AH | 08 October 2005 at 02:38 PM
Hi Mr or Mrs
I am interested in buying coffee Nescafe
I would like to buy 20-25 pallets every week
If you are interested please send me the prices
Thank you
Sincerely
Dmitry Poteryahin
Posted by: Dmitry | 27 July 2006 at 09:53 PM