Over the last 15 or so years (and going back to the collapse of the international commodities agreements in the 1980s), WTO, bilateral and regional free trade agreements have brought down the barriers to subsidised US & EU produce in most of the world’s nations.  The effect has been to progressively driven down the price of legal commodities in most countries, and force farmers into debt and off their land, as they find their own produce unable to compete with the cheap imports.

How many have reacted to this situation by switching to drug crops like coca for cocaine?  Seems a pretty logical choice, from their perspective.

One answer (the one proposed in the film) is to buy fair trade products, and support fair prices for the few million farmers who are certified to produce Fair Trade commoditeis.

Another – more serious – answer would be to push governments to re-negotiate international agreements to ensure that the prices of (legal) commodities support the billions of farmers around the world who grow them. (About 50% of the world’s population currentlyt depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.)

Have a look and tell us what you think in the comments below.

This groundbreaking move will result in the tripling of sales of cocoa under Fairtrade terms for cocoa farmers in Ghana, both increasing Fairtrade cocoa sales for existing certified farming groups, as well as opening up new opportunities for  thousands more farmers to benefit from the Fairtrade system.

Given that it sells 300 million of these is the UK & Ireland each year, this is a big step forward.  According to the Independent, Cadbury’s move will improve the livelihoods of forty thousand cacao farmers in Ghana.

We’ll be getting in touch with Cadbury in Australia to find out when they’ll be following suit….