Break the Chains this Valentines Day
I want to encourage everyone to start thinking now , if you are going to give gifts, about buying fairtrade/organic chocolate for Valentines day, cards from recycled materials and organically grown flowers.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/index.cfm
Over 40 percent of the world’s conventional chocolate (i.e. non-organic and non-Fair Trade) comes from Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), where the International Labor Organization (ILO) and US State Department have reported widespread instances of child slavery. Exploitation of cacao farmers and farm workers is the global norm in the chocolate industry, rather than the exception.
Meanwhile organizations such as the Pesticide Action Network point out that commercial flowers, produced in countries such as Colombia, are the most toxic and heavily sprayed agricultural crops on Earth. The high profits of the transnational flower exporters are derived from poisoning the land and farmers, while forcing workers in the flower industry, often young women, to work 18 hour days for poverty wages during peak flower buying times such as Valentine’s Day.
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Comments (7)
thank you for posting this, Raymond! i have been thinking about this and was considering doing a post on these subjects too. i'm glad you did it, because mine was gonna start with "Like any good white Ojai elitist pinko commie liberal, i'm constantly on the lookout for social traditions to suck the joy out of...", but this is much better. what a JOY to tell someone you care for them AND the planet they live on AND the other people we may never meet who helped make the gift possible!
Comment #1 Posted by: evan austin | February 12, 2009 02:30 PM
A great reminder, Raymond. Thank you!
Comment #2 Posted by: LTOR | February 12, 2009 03:25 PM
"when the Moon is in the Seventh House,
and Jupiter aligns with Mars ..."
Birth of Aquarius!
Comment #3 Posted by: mt | February 12, 2009 05:28 PM
Thank you Raymond. Do stores that sell commercial flowers know about this? So ironic...
Comment #4 Posted by: Suza | February 12, 2009 11:17 PM
I won't name names, but a well-to-do family here in Ojai is reputed to own a large cut flower operation based in Ecuador. Raymond, perhaps you might ask them to tell us all how it is. Can we feel OK buying these flowers?
It just may be an Ojai family whose flowers you are not buying.
Comment #5 Posted by: Anonymous | February 13, 2009 09:23 PM
Please everyone-
1. buy plastic flowers
2. do not eat any chocolate tomorrow
3. send only online greeting cards
hope to see you all in the singles bars...
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY
(...if you can possibly enjoy it...)
Comment #6 Posted by: mk | February 13, 2009 09:38 PM
The sentiment here is positive. But misdirected.
This Valentines Day: There are local chocolate makers. There are local fragrant soap makers. There are local flower growers. Please, if you truly want to promote real sustainability, reliable good environmental practices, and real fair trade, buy local direct from the producer. If you want to buy things that are not produced locally, and want to support real sustainability, reliable good environmental practices, and real fair trade, find one of the many real people who have set arrangements up with small scale producers abroad who they actually know and visit. Your local producers are not advertising on teevee or billboards and they are not on every store shelf - but they are there, and you might be surprised to find they are offering something better than what you'll find "certified" at the big box.
Hint: If its carried at Wal-Mart, its may be "certified." But isn't it kind of like the "guarantee" that the auto parts store owner in "Tommy Boy" wanted? Remember that? Tommy Boy responded: "I can take a crap, put it in a box and slap a guaranty on it - but its still crap. Now, if you want a quality brake pad ..."
How much of the premium you pay for organic certified or fair trade certified chocolate or flowers actually goes back to the producer?
As a percentage of the price you are paying, do you think the producer of those "certified" items is getting even a penny more than her exploited counterpart? Or is she in fact ending up with much less, as a percentage of what you pay?
Is there really any reason to believe that the "certified" producer is getting one penny more, or is doing one whit more environmentally, than the non-certified?
Are the "certified" organic and Fair Trade flowers from Colombia really more reliably organic and fair-traded than your local grower selling at the farmers market? Buy local, from the producer, and 100% of your retail money goes to the producer - doesn't get much fairer than that. And whose word do you trust more as far as environmental practices - the label that is also pasted across products all over Wal-mart, or the word of your local grower, who you could always actually visit if you wanted to?
Comment #7 Posted by: Local, Not Certified! | February 13, 2009 11:51 PM