Fair Trade?

Perhaps you recall a few years ago reading about a massacre of a royal family by a deranged crown prince.  Well that was Nepal, and the palace where that took place has since been converted into a museum.  I don't know what the museum contains, because it was inexplicably closed today.  Well I think it was, but I'm not entirely sure I was at the right entrance.  Some guards who didn't speak much English told me that behind the large gate was the museum, but they said "closed"--I think.  The guidebook was published before the palace became a museum, so it had no information on it.  

A few blocks away was a street that has a lot of fair trade stores, which Melissa and I have been interested in finding, so I set off.  (Incidentally, I make no effort not to appear a tourist.  I wear my camera around my neck, and carry the guidebook, often reading the map as I walk.  I mean, I could hide the camera and guidebook and try to blend in, but who would I be fooling.  So I embrace my role as tourist.)  I found the fair trade shops and made some purchases (it's a good thing I bought that extra backpack--I'll need it for all the additional stuff we're carting home).  I was proud of these purchases, glad to patronize shops that proudly help the local community.  

But it's not quite as transparent or simple as that--one of the stores had a cashier who spoke good English and was very talkative.  He said that last night he'd watched The Notebook, and really loved it.  He summarized the whole plot for me.  He said he'd been to the US a couple times for trade conventions, and that made me think he'd be a knowledgeable person to ask about fair trade.  I noticed that the stores had almost the same products as all the (not fair trade) street vendors.  So I asked him what exactly fair trade means, and whether purchasing from street vendors was good or bad for the local producers.  He enthusiastically told me about it, but what he said made me somewhat skeptical of the whole thing.  He said any goods purchased anywhere help the population.  Nepalis are so in need of jobs and so eager to have people buy their products that revenue from any vendor will go to help those local artisans.  The difference is that the prices are controlled in the fair trade stores.  A street vendor might mark up a product 100 or 200%, whereas the organization of stores called "fair trade" have fixed prices that can't exceed 30% above cost markup.  He said it makes for more fair practice with regard to the consumer.  Furthermore, his organizations work hard to market their products abroad and online, so that retailers and wholesalers will be able to sell Nepali-made goods and help the local population.  Again, sounds good.  But he didn't address in any detail where the products come from.  It was this evasiveness on the issue of the products and artisans themselves that makes me skeptical of the whole enterprise.  Clearly, so many different stores hawk goods that are so similar, that there must be a limited number of companies supplying all the tourist shops--including the fair trade ones.  The cashier said that those producers don't allow their vendors direct access to the artisans.  He said the producers provide documentation of the fair practices in production facilities, and vendors must trust that documentation.  Further inquiry about where and by whom these goods are produced would be unwelcome.  

I think the bottom line is that any work, even if it is backbreaking, repetitive production of tourist items (textiles, artwork, metalwork, jewelry, etc.) is welcome among people who otherwise would have no work.  A shop can call itself fair trade, but the degree to which it takes that label seriously seems to vary.  For example, one shop had a brochure that described contributions it makes to clinics and community development programs, whereas another had a brochure, but mentioned no such charitable use of its revenue.  One might say it's fair trade, thinking that some minimal wage qualifies as "helping the local population" but another might say it's fair trade and genuinely take action to improve quality of life.  The industry seems to regulate itself, which makes it difficult to trust.  I'm somewhat disappointed that I can't guarantee the revenue from my gift purchases goes to the right places, but I do the best I can, and at least we're not getting ripped off with a 100% markup at the fair trade stores.  This would be a topic that could make for really interesting investigative reporting.  Perhaps Anderson Cooper or Steve Croft could hire me as a field investigator...