A Word of Welcome

‌ ‌ ‌ In This Issue Producer Highlight: MURKA GIDA Producer Highlight: FINCA TERRERITO Updates to Standard New Certified Producers Greetings from FairTSA! The weather is heating up here in New York while summer winds down in other places like Peru, where our Compliance Manager Aureliano works from. We have been spent the first half of 2024 working as a team to continue growing as an organization and strengthening our online presence. Silke has lead the efforts to successfully set up a full Spanish website under the domain fairtsa.es. Aureliano has been leading our producer webinars and collecting Community Development Project evaluations and proposals. Meanwhile, Winfried is helping network with organizations such as the World Fair Trade Organization [WFTO]. I have been working on maintaining contact with our existing partners and brainstorming social media series. We have enjoyed this journey of expanding and deepening our connections and appreciate the continued support of all of our partners.  As we move into the second half of 2024, FairTSA is looking to find trade shows to participate in for the upcoming calendar year. If you are one of our partners and particiating in any conferences or trade shows, we would love to learn more about what you are attending to potentially connect with you in person! Please continue on reading to learn about the work of two of our Producers and changes to our Standard. Stay safe, Sam Luca Administrator

Producer Highlight: MURKA GIDA

One of the more challenging and exciting projects is currently happening in the village of Incealan, near Aydin in West Central Turkey. After long discussions in preparation for the project on September 2, 2023, Mehmet Tozan, the project coordinator, met with several groups individually – children, women and farmers, who had different ideas. In the general meeting it was eventually decided to create a village center so that women and children would have spaces to meet and play as the only meeting place thus far was the tea house, which is reserved for men only. The Incealan Community Center will also include an area for village celebrations such as weddings and other festivities.    Both the former mayor of Incealan and the major of the municipality Incealan belongs to, Sultanhisar, were very supportive of the idea. The latter even agreed to donate the space for the center and provide heavy equipment such as excavators and bulldozers at no cost for the site preparation.

In the image on the right, outer boundaries are in red, the playground in green, and benches and pergola in blue and red. The planned site for celebrations is not yet marked. The first phase of the project with the site prepared, the playground and the basic celebration area completed was supposed to be finished in February 2024, but due to heavy rains in the winter and the wish of the villagers to increase the center space somewhat, the first phase of this project is now envisioned to be completed in July 2024.

In a second phase, a building with a small library, a computer and a meeting room is envisioned to be started in the fall of 2024. In the clip below you can see catch a glimpse of the hard work necessary to prepare the site.

This project is a perfect example of the Social Premium as seed money. Here it is multiplied by the enthusiastic support of the community and their leaders thus having a far greater impact.   We would like to congratulate the villagers of Incealan, the mayors of both Incealan and Sultanhisar, the management of Murka Gida and our project coordinator for the phantastic work they have done.

Producer Highlight: FINCA TERRERITO

FINCA TERRERITO ,(Finca T), one of our long time FairTSA certified producer is looking for FairTSA buyers. This is a 5th generation specialty coffee farm located in Copan, Honduras dedicated to three core values:

·   Improving Lives: Supporting co-workers, the community and farmers. ·  Sustainable Practices: Protecting the environment for future generations. ·  Extraordinary Coffee: Hand-harvesting and processing with precision and care.   Finca T takes pride in being 100% Farm Direct: they hand pick every cherry, process, export and imports to their climate control warehouse in USA (no one else touches their green bean!). The coffee is processed with clean water from 400ft underground and stored in parchment form until export.    Varietals include Parainema, Catuai, Lempira, Obata.  Website: www.fincatcoffee.com Social Media: Instagram & FB @fincaterrerito Contact: Adelmo Lopez Alvarado at al@fincatcoffee.com

Updates to FairTSA Standard

The FairTSA Standard has been updated to better align with standard requirements for Fair Trade certification. We have made more standard changes in the last 2 years than usual, some due to new developments in the field, and some due to comments that we got too late to include them in the Version 4.0. The latest version 4.2 will now be published on July 1. We have added some clarification to our labor requirements as well as with regard to on-site housing for workers. One important reason for the recent changes are stricter requirements regarding moving toward a living wage for workers even in smaller operations. While we are aware that this creates a lot of challenges, we stay true to our approach of implementing standard changes in a phased way, taking into account the economical situation of both the workers and the difficult economic situation of smaller operations. Moving toward true living wages seems even more important now that the International Labour Organization has for the first time published a report outlining its basic approval for supporting living wages on a global stage.

Welcome to our Newest FairTSA Certified Companies!

The FairTSA team would like to extend a warm welcome to our newest FairTSA certified producers! Please contact us if you are interested in their Fair Trade FairTSA certified products. Danagro Food Industries LLP, India Honey Products Cherry Land for Import and Export, Egypt Sweet Palermo Peppers, Paprika New Asia Oil, Philippines Coconut Oil MURKA GIDA TAR.ÜR.SAN.VE.TİC.LTD.ȘTİ, Turkey Organic Dried Figs KIRICI KURU MEYVA VE GIDA TEKS.TURZ.SAN.VE TİC.A.Ș., Turkey Organic Dried Apricots And we extend an equally warm welcome to our newest FairTSA Licensing Partners! Global Fresh Trading (Schweiz) Ag, Switzerland

Cooperating Certifiers

Aditi Agreco Biocert International CERES Control Union ICERT Kiwa BCS Mayacert, S.A. NASAA C.O.

Join Our Mailing List Follow Us ‌ ‌ ‌

Website Resources Projects Media Contact

Fair Trade Sustainability Alliance wfuchshofen@fairtsa.org +1 518-794-0286 P.O. Box 791 New Lebanon, NY 12125 USA