Last Thursday, 12 January marked the official launch of the UN 2012 International Year of Cooperatives, and the start of a vigorous debate about alternatives to business as usual.
Fairtrade’s roots also lie in the cooperative movement, and today a whopping 75% of all Fairtrade producer organisations are cooperatives of small scale farmers.
Cooperation has always been the backbone of the fair trade movement. It was from cooperatives of small scale coffee farmers in Mexico that the appeal to NGOs and churches in the North to establish the first Fairtrade label came, first known as Max Havelaar. That has led to a global producer-campaigner cooperation today through Fairtrade International spanning more than 80 countries in both North and South.
Read the rest of the article by Barbara Crowther, Communications Director, Fairtrade Foundation here, 2012: UN International Year of Co-operatives
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