Fair Trade: News & Updates

IRTF board members traveled to Massachusetts in June when Equal Exchange, an alternative trade organization (ATO), hosted its eighth annual Summit.  This year, the energy was palpable and the room was full! It was a powerful reminder that we are at a turning point in our mission to build a truly democratic brand and foster meaningful participation in our food system.

These gatherings are core to the work we are doing with the People-Consumer community here at Equal Exchange. In a world where democracy is under threat, our work is more important now than ever before. Equal Exchange extends a special thanks to all the presenters and to the keynote speaker, Austin Frerick.  Austin is the author of the book Barons: Money, Power & Corruption of America’s Food Industry. Consolidation of power in our food system threatens the future of independent food and has been a cornerstone topic in our organizing work. Austin’s book and keynote grounded the group and set us up for more in-depth conversations with all of our amazing presenters.

Sessions covered a gamut of topics, from Equal Exchange’s alternative capital and governance model to our work with farmers and consumers.

Did you know that IRTF’s fair trade program raises approximately $25,000 each year, providing vital income for fair trade artisans and farmers in Latin America? They depend on groups like IRTF to find markets for their fair trade goods.

And IRTF, with only two paid staff, depends on volunteers to generate this income for the artisans and farmers.

Can you help out IRTF for a couple of hours?

Click here to see the schedule of dates and hours, and sign up for a shift.

IRTF is grateful to the 200 supporters who gathered on October 27 at Pilgrim Church in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood for IRTF’s annual Commemoration of the Martyrs. In addition to marking the 44th anniversary of the martyrdom of Cleveland’s missioners in El Salvador (Jean Donovan and Sister Dorothy Kazel, alongside Maryknoll Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke), we commemorated 36 human rights defenders killed in Central America and Colombia this past year because they dared to speak truth to power.

Our keynote speaker, Lorena Araujo of the largest campesino organization in El Salvador (CRIPDES), held the crowd’s attention with horrific stories of mass arrests, detentions and deaths currently happening under their government’s State of Exception, now in its third year. With more 88,000 imprisoned (and more than 300 deaths in prison), El Salvador now has the highest incarceration rate in the world—surpassing the astronomical rate of incarceration in the United States. 

As the people of El Salvador face the greatest challenge to their democracy since the end of the civil war in 1992, they invite us to renew and deepen our solidarity.

If you would still like to make a donation:

https://bit.ly/3YDmETj     via Zeffy platform

irtfcleveland.org/donate  via Network for Good

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Honduras is currently facing at least USD 14 billion in claims from foreign and domestic companies. This is equivalent to roughly 40 percent of the country's GDP in 2023 and almost four times its public investment budget in 2024. A new study on this avalanche of claims found that most investors are revolting against Honduran efforts to reverse or renegotiate corrupt deals made under Hernández, which were often damaging to the public interest and local communities.

Juan Orlando Hernández is the Honduras former drug trafficking and corrupt president who was illegally reelected through fraud and with the help of the US.

Now a private toll booth operator - backed by major US banks, including JP Morgan Chase Bank and two Goldman Sachs funds - is suing Honduras in international arbitration. They are demanding 180 million dollars, more than four times what the company has reportedly invested. If these investors are successful, the economic burden on the country will only deepen the displacement crisis that is driving Hondurans north.