but it doesn't say fairtrade in the bible

For you Catholics out there, this shouldn't be a very large road block. We love tradition, and not saying a word in the bible doesn't mean a thing (purgatory anybody?). So yes, the term Fairtrade, like Purgatory, is fairly new, so we're clear; Jesus didn't tell us to buy fairtrade.

But wait....I think he did t.ell us something else

Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me. ~ Matthew 25:40 

Thus says the LORD: Do what is right and just. Rescue the victim from the hand of his oppressor. Do not wrong or oppress the resident alien, the orphan, or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. ~ Jeremiah 22:3

Open your mouth in behalf of the dumb, and for the rights of the destitute; Open your mouth, decree what is just, defend the needy and the poor! ~ Proverbs 31:8-9

I could list so many more. Jesus said to help the needy and to defend the rights of those who can't defend themselves. Jesus, who became man to show us the way to Heaven, says we must do these things. His words aren't a pick and choose kind of thing; they are law. Love your neighbor as yourself; do unto others as you you have them do unto you. These are beaten into us at an early age.

And we do, in many cases, follow this highest rule. We give to the homeless, give money to church, volunteer in the classroom, and hold a door open. But, then there are so many times we do not. When Jesus said neighbor, he did not only mean the person living in the house beside you. He meant everybody. He meant the child making shoes on the other side of the world and the mom to four sewing designer jeans for 12 hours a day as well as the person living next door to you.

By buying products that are made by the modern day slaves, we are doing the opposite of what Jesus has commanded us to do. We are taking their rights away.

Maybe just one person buying one product is not going to change the whole system but then again, the shepherd went back for the one lost sheep. Every purchase is only a drop in the ocean, but without every drop there would be no ocean.

click on this to get a visual explaining my last post! It gets bigger!

(http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1104/fair-trade/flat.html)

chocolate

Yes, this post is about chocolate.  Everyone loves chocolate!
That is why you are about to be able to make a huge difference in a lot of people's lives.

A few weeks ago, my friends Jade stated that she wants to become an ethical and moral consumer.  I agreed that this would be nice, and we chatted a minute about how easy it sounds, but how in reality, it takes some effort on our parts.  Most of the products you and I buy at the store are after all, not ethically made.  Morally, I cannot say as to how they have been made, because that is a personal preference, but more on that later.

Jade said, that since buying ethical product is a huge change to make, she was going to start small: no more buying unethically made chocolate.

After she told me this, I asked a rather stupid question. The first thing that came out of my mouth was "forever?"

After being told that yes, she was going to do it forever, I decided to do it too.  Now I have dabbled in the art of buying ethically made things, but I really had not idea what it really meant to buy ethically made chocolate when I agreed to this "forever" change.

Through quite a but of reading, I found that the only way to truly know if chocolate has been produced ethically, and by ethically, I mean not using child labor, not using any type of forced labor, and paying the farmers fair living wages so their farm may be sustainable, is to buy products that have been Fairtrade certified.

A few facts:

• Coco is produced in over 30 developing countries.  This business supports over 14 million people. 90% of coco is grown on small family farms.
• In the market, companies buy coco in bulk orders of at least 10 tons.  These small farmers may not even produce 1/2 ton in a year.  Because of this, they are forced to go to a middleman who, because of a lack of communication between farmers and regulation enforcement, can give the farmer just about any price he wants.  The prices they receive many times do not even cover production.
• 43% of the world's coco comes from the Ivory Coast, where there is widespread child slavery.

After reading these staggering facts, I wanted to know what fairtrade chocolate actually did for the farmer.  So I read, a lot. 

I found out that the Fairtrade system alleviates these abuses.  The Fairtrade certified farmer does not use child labor and pays his workers fair wages.  The farmer in turn in paid the Fairtrade Minimum Price, which is calculated to be able to cover the cost of sustainable production.  This allows the farmer to be able to support his family.   If the world market price is above the Fairtrade Minimum Price (which seldom happens), the farmer is paid the world market price.  Fairtrade standards restrict use of chemicals, which encourages sustainable agriculture methods.

Doesn't this sound great?  You're probably thinking what I was, "there must be a catch."  I'm going to lay it out for you: Fairtrade products, most of the time,  cost a little bit more than products that are not made ethically.

There, I've said it.  You have to make a choice.  You can either save a dollar every time you buy chocolate or you can save the 14 million people that the coco industry supports.  

So...what's it gonna be?

Maybe you won't decide now, but next time you're taking a bite into that creamy milk chocolate or that Reeses Cup or drinking some steamy hot coco on a cold winter day, ask yourself who made your chocolate?

(All information gotten from the Fairtrade International Website at http://www.fairtrade.net/cocoa.html and http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/resources/natural_resources_institute.aspx)