Life after farmers. How will we manage without them?

Kerala farmer and son

An informal and unscientific poll of the farmers that I’ve met so far in Kerala confirm that within the next decade or two we may be moseying along into a huge farming crisis as  NONE of the farmers thought their children would take over the family business. 

Kerala is a bit of an exceptional place as they have universal access to education resulting in 100% literacy. The educated young people inevitably go abroad or to the city to earn better money in office jobs. However that aside we can see this scenario being reenacted across the rest of the globe, for example in the UK and the US the average age of a farmer is 58 and in Kenya it’s 60.

There are lots of reasons for this. In all countries, low prices and the constant uncertain fluctuating market have pushed people away from farming. In others farming is a low status occupation, so even if the returns are good, a job elsewhere is preferred.

Cadbury’s recognized the problem and the threat this insecure situation posed to the long term viability of their business and so decided to invest in the supply chain through the Fairtrade system and also their own cocoa programme. The move, amongst other things, resulted in the Dairy Milk bar achieving Fairtrade certification and meant cocoa farming being a more attractive proposition for workers and young people in the area.

Another difficult truth is that the practically universally agreed with right of access to education for young people (especially dear to Fair Trade supporters), has an unintended other consequence: the traditional skills which for centuries have been passed down from generation to generation are getting lost as people learn about computers instead of farming.

I’m not saying that we should reverse the situation and if I was offered a job as a farmer I would turn it down straight away (pros: nice views, driving a tractor and fresh food. Cons: early starts, bad pay, bad weather, no holidays and never ending long hours). But it does need serious thought and debate in the Fair Trade world and beyond.

What on earth are we going to do when there are no more farmers?

Organic food is better for health (just not necessarily ours)

At one of the farms in Waynaud that I visited I asked Matthew, a cashew, coffee and spice farmer, what difference Fair Trade had made. He answered with two points, one that I expected and one that I didn’t. He said that he now got a better price for his products (tick) but he also said that he now had peace of mind (surprise!)

Surprise because it’s surely meant to be Western consumers who secure peace of mind, not the producer!

Well to set the context, the people of Kerala are highly aware of the potential dangers associated with pesticide use. Through talking to people here (I’m not sure how much awareness there is about this in the UK but a quick search on the Guardian online comes up with a couple of references), I’ve learnt of a national scandal involving the use of a particular government touted pesticide in North Kerala. (Click here for the link and more information on the pesticide name, it seems that the Guardian newspaper is currently being sued by its manufacturers, so on the off chance that this very small blog gets picked up by the big boys I won’t mention endo-shhhhhhhh). 

In the Kasaragod district the pesticide was being sprayed over the crops by helicopters and the proper safety measures regarding protecting water sources weren’t taken. In the last few decades there have been a huge number of people with cancer, nervous system disorders and mental health problems and a disproportionally large number of babies born with genetic disabilities in that area.  A charity has been set up for the victims and its worth a visit to their website to understand the nature and tragedy of the issue. Although the government hasn’t officially recognized the problem, there is currently a ban in place on this pesticide.

So for Matthew despite the extra burden of work associated with becoming organic (see my last blog post for weeding moan!) He can now rest easy with his conscience.*

I was really interested in this aspect of organic food. In general the UK debates surrounding the proposed health benefits of organic food focus on how many extra vitamins and nutrients the UK consumer will get for their extra pennies. Although there is some information on the Soil Association’s website about this aspect, the public debate tends to ignore it. However to me this is probably the most convincing argument I’ve ever heard in favour of organic food.  It isn’t an acceptable to trade off: pest free food in return for the lives and health of people.

One final interesting comment by one of the staff members of Elements (the trading arm of the Fair Trade Alliance Kerala) was that when farmers start using pesticides they stop growing their own food. This to me says quite a lot, but I’d be really interested to hear what you think.

* Just to clarify that not all Fairtrade certified products are organic. All the farmers that are part of the Fair Trade Alliance Kerala are also organic; however this is not the case for all Fairtrade producers. Fairtrade recognizes that not all producers are able to become organic so the standards outlaw the dangerous pesticides, including the above alluded to pesticide, and require that producers reduce the amount of chemicals they use as far as possible.

Small Farmers. Big Change

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Me and Paul at the FTAK office

I have been in Kerala for just under two weeks and have already visited many Fairtrade certified farms. Kerala is a beautiful place, it’s very green with palm trees everywhere and as you get higher into the mountains, there are tea plantations and forests. The people are incredibly welcoming, in one day we visited 4 farmers and at every stop we were greeted with Chai (automatically comes with about 5 sugars), bananas and snacks and despite knowing no one in India I’ve already been to two weddings!

The thing I was most struck by was just how small scale the farmers are that Fair Trade is working with. They ranged from owning a plot of land of under 1 acre (tiny!) to 7 hectares. The farmers  join together in a cooperative and become a member of the Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK); all farmers for FTAK are also organic.  The farms are all family farms which take on extra workers (usually neighbours) during the busy times, or as one farmer grumbled, to help with the weeding since they’ve gone organic!

Matthew with his cashew tree

The market that Fair Trade provides these farmers with is vital and the structure and support from the Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK) is also important, for example one farmer Matthew said that FTAK gave him guidance on which organic fertilizers to use and he has since been able to increase the size of his cashew nuts to meet the required size by the supermarket (the supermarkets strict and often pointless requirements mean that a huge amount of good food gets wasted- but that’s a different blog post!) They are also advised to grow mixed crops (including vegetables for their own consumption) which puts the farmer in a much more secure position as they aren’t reliant on one crop only. When I asked another farmer Pally what had changed since they’d become part of Fair Trade, he said that they now worked together and had much more bargaining power and some sort of voice on the world market through FTAK. 

By working with small farmers who then organize themselves into cooperatives you are getting to the crux of the original purpose of Fair trade: to transform power relations so that small farmers are empowered to take action and create a better livelihood themselves. I think perhaps this important message has got lost in the campaign rhetoric around Fair Trade. It’s much simpler to show  a photo of a school that has been built with the Fairtrade premium but this ignores the importance of people coming together, working together, challenging conventional trade and having a voice on the world market for the first time. Unfortunately and this is perhaps one of the reasons why it’s gone slightly out of view, it’s impossible to get a photo which illustrates this!