Here are just a few of our valued producers, and a little bit about them and how they have been affected by Fair Trade working. Click on a name to see the full story:
- Brazia - How Fairtrade wages benefit workers
- Khan Family - How Fairtrade premiums pay for workers health care
- Bijad - How Fairtrade Premiums pay for Micro-credit loans
- Kadir Ensure - How Fairtrade funds micro-credit
- Kitman - Sri Lankan Fair Trade rubber project
- Shymala - Fair trade rubber tapping in South India
- Sameena Nyaz - How Fairtrade Premiums help pay for healthcare
- Gollapalli Nampalli - Organic Cotton Growing in India »
- Iramma Ramappa Bangari - Organic Cotton Growing in India
- Mr Babu - Fair Trade pension project for rubber tappers
- Mr. Dadmanabhan - Health insurance from the Fair trade Fund
- Ms. Saradha - An operation paid for by Fair Trade premiums
- Rezwan Waris - How Fair Trade Premiums pay for Micro-credit
- Premavati and other Tsunami Victims - Greentips™ Rubber Band Balls
- Mr Sadasivan - Wedding costs help from Fair Trade premiums in South India
To find out more about the making of Fair Trade Footballs, see our video on YouTube.
» Organic Cotton Growing in India
Gollapalli Nampalli (45) is an Indian farmer with 5 acres of land but due to a failed monsoon only 3 are cultivated.
Gollapalli has one daughter, Rajita (20), studying postgraduate Literature, she has a room with a family in the college town as the hostel is too expensive. Rajita goes home at the weekend to help with the cotton harvest, her college fees are 5000 rupees per annum and she gets 300 rupees per month (£4) pocket money.
Gollapalli’s sister and her daughter and their neighbour intercrop (cultivate two or more crops in the same space at the same time) the cotton with red gram (a type of lentil) and marigold (a natural pesticide) and also ladyfinger and cluster beans. The small size of plants grown demonstrates the lack of fertilizer; there is not enough manure available or it’s too expensive.
For small families like Gollapalli’s there are often not enough family members to tend cattle which means they can not generate sufficient amounts of manure necessary as a natural fertiliser for organic farming. As a result external labour is needed for weeding and manual pest control like the setting of 'sticky traps' or bird perches. Hired labour is expensive, hence the reliance on family and friends.
Last year Gollapalli farmed 4 acres of cotton with a yield of 1000 kg. There are 42 Fairtrade cotton farmers in his village, in four groups; Gollapalli’s group has 8 members. They all save 50 rupees per month (about 65p). They hope to expand their activity by organizing a milk collection; their group has 16 animals, with a total of 160 litres of milk/day.
Like all other groups in this district they benefit from a warehouse for the storage of cotton, which was build with support of a Fair Trade buyer. A new set of scales were also purchased for proper weighing and the coop has plans to purchase a wide screen TV for group entertainment. A serious problem faced by the villagers is that the groundwater has too high a content of fluoride and many people in the area suffer from bone decay as a result. The group hope to buy a reverse osmosis plant for (cheap) sale of water to the surrounding village as an extra income opportunity. The group could not afford such investments without Fair Trade premiums.