DeguiAcademy (Taipei), November 14 2011. The Preparatory Office of Dharma Drum University, Social enterprise innovation &Entrepreneur Association of Fu-Jen Catholic University, Taiwan Fairtrade Association and ökogreen corporation held together the forum of “New Markets—How Fair Trade makes a Global wave of Ethical Consumption and Moral Purchase”.

This fourm invited Andrea Richert (New Markets Manager, Global Account Management, FLO) and Martin Hill (Director of Global Accounts and Global Product Management, FLO) to introduce the system of Fairtrade Labelling Organization International and the situation of global Fairtrade market. Many enterprises supporting Fairtrade in Taiwan attended this meeting and brought foods, drinks, handicraft, clothing and other articles of daily use for exhibition.

Wen-Yen Hsu( Director of Taiwan Fairtrade Association) addressed the meeting about“ The Development of Taiwan Fairtrade”. He pointed out three potentialities of developing Fairtrade in Taiwan: (1) many people in Taiwan like to do charities, but he reminded us that Fairtrade is not just charity but a movement of commerce and consumption. (2) People in Taiwan care the quality of goods gradually, so the dealers should open the message of the process in producing and trading for everybody, because this is the only way to earn consumer’s trust. (3) The movement of agriculture is arising in Taiwan. Lots of people care the agricultural issues day after day, such as county fairs of small-scale farmers, sustainable agriculture and fair rewards to farmers. Many problems of agriculture in Taiwan can be solved by the way of Fairtrade, and we can learn from the system of check and certification to deal the problems of production and marketing in Taiwan.

Martin Hill said that Fairtrade means a trading partnership is based on dialogue, transparency and respect. It has a ethical certification system, non-profit organization and multi-stakeholder association. Fairtrade international consists of producer networks, labelling initiatives and marketing organizations. It support producers globally with increasing markets, improving producers life, access to finance, fairer trading and increasing consumer markets. Fairtrade is impacting on about 1.1 million small-scale farmers and workers from in 63 countries benefit (2010), tens of millions of Euros in Fairtrade Premium each year have invested in business, production, community infrastructure(clean drinking water, sanitation), career development, health care and education.

FLO are already partnering with many companies, such as Kraft Foods, Cadbury, Nestle, Starbuck, Unilever, Ben&Jerry’s and Mars. What the developmental goals are in Fairtrade? It’s about (1)Creating sustainable livelihoods, such as improved income, decent working and living conditions, sustainable ecosystem；(2) Making trade fair, such as fair trading relationships, economically sustainable producers；(3)personal empowerment, empowering relations and structure.

In the end of the forum, Martin emphasized small change can make different, so he mentioned one of Martin Luther King’s speech: “Before you finished your breakfast this morning, you’ll have relied on half the world.” ,then a Mexico cocoa farmer’s word has also been mentioned: “Many raindrops falling in the mountain make rivers flow.”