Fair Trade Standards

Objective of the Standard

Fair Trade USA developed the Draft Farm Workers Standard to serve farm workers that don’t own land, but work on large-scale farms. The standard is based on the following principles:

1. Empowerment: Inclusive Participation and Transparency
   • Farm workers are empowered to determine how to spend community development premiums in a way that best meets the needs of their community.
   • Farm workers are trained in areas such as health, freedom of association and freedom from discrimination.
   • Farm workers are able to represent themselves effectively in their negotiations with management for improved working conditions.
2. Economic Development: Stable business relationships and Pre-Determined Community Development Premiums.
   • Fair Trade requires pre-determined community development premiums on every sale.
3. Social Responsibility
   • Fair Trade prohibits child and forced labor, ensures health and safety measures are established in order to avoid work-related injuries, ensures access to healthcare, and follows International Labor Conventions (ILO).
   • Community Development Premiums can be used to provide greater access to / quality of healthcare and education.
4. Environmental Stewardship
   • Farms operate in accordance with best practices for environmental sustainability including eliminating the most toxic chemicals, undertaking practices to prevent soil erosion and increase soil fertility, safely disposing of waste and limiting waste where possible, maintaining buffer zones for protected areas, recording energy consumption, and implementing procedures to use water sources efficiently.

Standards Development and Stakeholder Review

To draft the Fair Trade USA Draft Farm Workers Standard, Fair Trade USA reviewed several standards and their compliance criteria, including FLO’s Hired Labor standard. Additionally, this standard follows the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, and requires legal compliance with national law and local legislation as a baseline.

We are seeking stakeholder input to this standard, using the following process:

1. We have published the standard here in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French (coming soon) to enable our stakeholders to easily provide input.
2. Please use a feedback form in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese to send your suggestions for improvements to Fair Trade USA. Send the feedback form to standards@fairtradeusa.org. Comments can also be posted in our community forum.
3. We will be publishing the standard in Spanish and Portuguese on November 1, to enable more stakeholders to easily provide input.
4. The public comment period starts November 1, 2011 and ends January 31, 2012.

Fair Trade USA will publish Version 1.0 of the Fair Trade USA Farm Workers Standard Q2, 2012 in conjunction with Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), our technical advisor.

Download the Fair Trade USA Vision and Objective for the Farm Workers Standard.

Download the Fair Trade USA Draft Farm Workers Standard.

Objective of the Standard

Fair Trade USA developed the Independent Smallholder (ISH) Standard to provide access to the benefits of Fair Trade for the many farmers that own small parcels of land but are not organized into cooperatives or associations. Fair Trade USA aims to bring our mission of empowerment, economic development, social responsibility and environmental stewardship to these “independent” Small Farmers, by helping them to partner with a Market Access Partner to commercialize their products. The standard is based on the following principles:

1. Empowerment: Inclusive Participation and Transparency
   • The group of smallholders, through democratically elected representatives, is responsible for decisions on the use of the Fair Trade Community Development premium.
   • Independent Smallholders are empowered and able to represent themselves effectively in their negotiations with the Market Access Partner.
2. Economic Development: Stable business relationships and Pre-determined Community Development Premiums
   • Fair Trade contracts are honored and independent smallholders are able to better commercialize their product.
   • Fair Trade USA standards require pre-determined Fair Trade community development premiums on every sale.
3. Social Responsibility
   • Fair Trade prohibits child labor and forced labor and ensures health and safety measures are established.
   • Community Development Premiums can be used to provide greater access to / quality of healthcare and education.
4. Environmental Stewardship
   • Independent Smallholders practice sustainable farming and protect biodiversity.
   • The Market Access Partner helps smallholders increase their knowledge of environmentally sustainable production methods.

Standards Development and Stakeholder Review

The ISH Standard builds on the strengths of the certification of Smallholder Organizations while providing flexibility for farmers to choose how to best organize and commercialize their products. In drafting the ISH Standard, Fair Trade USA reviewed several standards and their compliance criteria, including FLO’s Small Producer Organization and Contract Production standards, Rainforest Alliance’s Group Certification standard, Utz Certified’s Multi-Site standard and IMO Fair For Life’s “Criteria for Farmer Groups”. Additionally, this standard follows the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions, and requires legal compliance with national law and local legislation as a baseline.

We are seeking stakeholder input to this standard, using the following process:

1. We have published the standard here in English and Spanish to enable our stakeholders to easily provide input. We will soon be publishing in Portuguese and French.
2. Please use a feedback form in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese to send your suggestions for improvements to Fair Trade USA. Send the feedback form to standards@fairtradeusa.org. Comments can also be posted in our community forum.
3. The public comment period ends April 13, 2012.

We will review all suggestions received in conjunction with Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), our technical advisor, and aim to publish a Version 1.0 of the Fair Trade USA Independent Smallholder Standard in Q3 of 2012.

Download the Vision, Objective and Summary of the Independent Smallholder Standard.

Download the Fair Trade USA Independent Smallholder Standard.

Goal and Objective

While Fair Trade USA will always recognize FLO-CERT certification, we are also making Fair Trade USA standards available to give more producer groups more options for getting the benefits of Fair Trade.

Fair Trade USA developed the Smallholder Organization (SHO) Standard to support the thousands of small-scale family farmers who are empowered by selling their products collectively via an organization that they manage democratically. SHOs can be powerful tools for collectively negotiating better terms of trade, organizing education and capacity-building for their members, pooling investment funds, and implementing community development projects. The standard incorporates the core Fair Trade USA principles:

1. Empowerment: Inclusive Participation and Transparency
   • The Smallholders control their organization through a democratic process, and are jointly responsible for decisions on the use of the Fair Trade community development premium.
   • The SHO must develop all financial, business, and community development plans in conjunction with their members, and present all related information in a transparent way to the General Assembly of SHO members.
2. Economic Development: Stable business relationships and pre-determined premiums
   • Fair Trade USA standards require pre-determined community development premiums to be paid on every sale.
   • Fair Trade guarantees a minimum floor price to farmers, which acts as a safety net when market prices are low.
   • Fair Trade contracts are honored so that stable trade relationships can develop and SHOs can better commercialize their products.
3. Social Responsibility
   • Fair Trade prohibits child and forced labor and ensures health and safety measures are established.
   • Community Development premiums can be used to provide greater access to and quality of healthcare and education.
4. Environmental Stewardship
   • The SHO provides training to its members on sustainable farming practices and protect biodiversity.
   • The SHO ensures that its members protect biodiversity and do not use restricted chemicals such as the PAN Dirty Dozen or GMOs.

Standards Development and Stakeholder Review

To draft the Fair Trade USA Draft Farm Workers Standard, Fair Trade USA will review several standards and their compliance criteria. The SHO Standard will be available for comment in Q2 2012.

Download FLO's Small Producer Organization (SPO) Standard (English, French, Spanish or Portuguese).

Factory Standards - Goal and Objective

The Fair Trade USA Pilot Apparel & Linens Standards serve garment factory workers and textile artisans. They complement the farm-level standards for cotton farmers. The objective of the standards are to bring more income and empowerment to workers in factories and sewing cooperatives that produce Fair Trade Certified apparel, and to ensure fair working conditions and environmentally responsible production at these facilities.

Fair Trade apparel raises the bar and goes beyond codes of conduct.  In addition to internationally recognized labor standards, the standards require:

• Fair Trade Premiums. Workers decide democratically how to allocate additional funds, whether to distribute a cash bonus or invest in a community need.
• Worker Voice. Workers receive training on their rights and have confidential channels to report grievances or complaints, both within and outside the facility
• Women’s Rights. Standards have specific provisions to protect women’s rights, prevent sexual harassment, and promote equal pay.

Factory Standards - Development & Consultation

The Fair Trade USA Pilot Standards for Fair Trade Certified Apparel & Linens were developed from core conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO), in addition to the highest standards from global, multi-stakeholder initiatives such as Social Accountability International (SAI), Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), and the Fair Wear Foundation (FWF).

 The draft standards were put out for consultation during a 45-day public comment period in November 2009, and revised based on input received from 55 organizations in 15 countries.

The Multi-Stakeholder Group for Apparel is initiating an evaluation of the Apparel Pilot and will issue written recommendations in 2012. Fair Trade USA will incorporate recommendations as appropriate and transition the Apparel program to its next phase.

Cotton Standards

Fair Trade cotton standards promote higher earnings, community development and environmental sustainability for cotton farmers. The standards include a minimum price that covers a farmer’s cost of production, and a community investment premium to address local needs.

Download the Cotton Standards (English, French, Spanish or Portuguese).

Download FLO's Small Producer Organization (SPO) Standard (English, French, Spanish or Portuguese).

Download the Price and Premium table (English, French, or Spanish).

The Factory standards are divided into two parts, Cut-and-Sew Standards and Buyer Standards.

Download the Cut-and-Sew Standards (English or Spanish).

Download the Buyer Standards (Obligations of Buyers).

Download FLO's Contract Production Standard (English or Spanish)