My last Blog
This will be my last entry on the Community Blog. I have been heaving my old-bones onto the 7.53 train from Oxenholme to London Euston every Tuesday morning for the last two years and now, with the OKE smoothie launched, it seems like an appropriate time to call it a day and retire to my Lake District home.
Filed under Ethical dilemma | Comment (1)Crunch Test for Fair Trade
The front page of this mornings Guardian carries the headline ‘£50bn bid to save banks’. The economic downturn has been the focal point of the news for some time now but the scale of the credit crunch, and its impact on our thinking and behaviour, has been encapsulated by the wrangling of Europe’s top politicians, a sense of unity, albeit somewhat uncertain, between the major political parties in the UK, and the collapse of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki; all within just a few days. Continue reading »
OKÉ Smoothies Are Go
WOW! The day has finally come. The world’s first Fairtrade smoothie brand has arrived. From this morning our OKÉ Fairtrade smoothies are in 179 Asda stores.
It’s hard to describe the feeling really. For our little team here it is the culmination of more than a year’s work. And so we are all tremendously excited to see the product in-store and sample the product direct from its intended pack; rather than from kitchen prepared samples. And it really does taste great! Continue reading »
Filed under OKÉ Smoothies | Comment (0)Thanks for a fantastic response
Last week I shared a dilemma with you about papaya. I have to say that the response has been fantastic. Quite apart from the responses posted on this blog, all of which are excellent, I have quite separately received dozens of emails from like-minded people who want to share in the debate. Many different, and sometimes opposing, views have been expressed and it is very difficult to identify a consensus. Continue reading »
A Real Dilemma
I have a real dilemma. Last November I visited a group of farmers in West Africa to talk to them about importing Fairtrade papayas into the UK. This would be a world first for AgroFair and potentially transform the lives of a small community in Ghana. The fruit is of excellent quality and Fairtrade accreditation is close to being achieved. However, there is a problem. These farmers have never exported produce before and their volumes are only just starting to build up. In addition, even if the volume were available, we would need 20 tons of fruit, or about 5700 cartons, to fill a container for shipping by sea. That’s an awful lot of papaya!
Filed under Ethical dilemma | Comments (14)The use of pesticides by banana farmers is almost universal practice
The use of pesticides by banana farmers is almost universal practice. The prevalence of black sigatoka, a fungal disease which can devastate production capacity, has, in particular, effectively necessitated a constant need to spray the crops. Fairtrade standards seek to minimise the use of pesticides in order to protect the environment but truly organic bananas are a rare and expensive commodity.
Filed under Costa Rica - Panama 2008 | Comment (0)Only the prospect of Fair Trade offers an avenue to a better future
I think I will have to be careful with my choice of photographs for this blog in the future. I only realised the almost complete absence of any women, in what I thought were well-chosen shots, when a fellow-blogger asked the obvious question. Well, for the record, our Annual Shareholders Meeting is held alternately in the south and then the north; last year it was in Ecuador and this year in the UK. And there are female participants although they have, so far, been much in the minority. Continue reading »
Filed under Costa Rica - Panama 2008 | Comments (2)
John’s first ever blog
This is my first ever attempt at a blog and it is difficult to know where to start. I suppose my head is still full of our shareholders meeting which has just taken place in the UK. This is when all of the farmers, who are members and shareholders of AgroFair get together to interrogate our management performance and discuss our strategy for the future.