fair trade - home and away

This story (which was linked to by Mark), together with a conversation I had with a friend this morning reminded me of the importance of campaigning for fair trade, and to make poverty history, not just in the developing world, but also in our own countries as well.

My friend was telling me about a couple of incidents which had happened recently. A few days ago she had a knock at the door - it was a milkman (what's one of them you might ask), trying to drum up business. Things had gotten so bad that he was at risk of going out of business. My friend, being suitably caring and compassionate, decided to start ordering milk from him. Compare this with the fact that a certain supermarket just down the road, was doing a promotion whereby they were giving away milk. FOR FREE. Just because they could.

Yes of course we need to campaign for fair trade across the world, and buying fair trade coffee, tea, orange juice (my personal favourite) is great. But I can't help but think we need to remember that fair trade should apply everywhere, in our country as well. It's not just 'in Africa' where multi-national corporations are screwing over the little guy.