 Quick Links to Cooperating Certifiers |
Joe Smillie Joining FairTSA
Joe Smillie, organic industry veteran, co-founder of the Organic Trade Association, and winner of numerous organic awards has decided to join our ranks as Strategic Adviser. Welcome Joe!
|
Congratulations Dr. Dhaker!
Dr. Dilip Dhaker, CEO of Biocert India, re-cently received the prestigious Indira Ghandi Priyardarshini Award 2012.
|
Typhoon Haiytan
Typhoon Haiytan (locally know as Yolanda), possibly the most powerful typhoon ever, left a path of unprecedented de-struction in the Eastern Philippine Islands of Leyte and Samar. Fortunately, Celebes Coconut, our producer partner and the associated small farmers on Mindanao were only marginally affected.
We ask you to consider donating to a non-profit organization you trust to alleviate the suffering of the people affected by this disaster.
|
|
 |
|
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We are excited to share news about our work and the projects we're involved in. Many partners have helped to make these projects possible, and we are grateful to all of them - from farmers and farm workers to community facilitators, key development and licensing partners, our cooperating certifiers and last but not least the consumers who purchase the products with our logo and pay a fair price to support an equitable and sustainable future for all. Let's grow together and change the business model of pure profit maximization to one that is economically viable, socially responsible and environmentally friendly.
Dr. Winfried Fuchshofen
Executive Director, FairTSA
|
|
CEDAC and the Domrei Romeal Organic Producer Cooperative
|
|
Community development is at the core of the FairTSA Fair Trade program, and the planning of community projects is an important step on the way to implementing successful community projects. An excellent example of a community project planning session is the one conducted by CEDAC 2013 in Pnom Penh, Cambodia. CEDAC, a well-respected non-profit organization that supports several rice producing cooperatives, is our Key Development Partner for the projects and markets the rice for the producer cooperatives. CEDAC also cooperates with many well-known development organizations such as HEKS (Swiss Interchurch Aid), GIZ (German Association for International Cooperation) and GRET (Professionals for Fair Development), among many others. CEDAC also does training and coaching for the System of Rice Intensi-fication (SRI). SRI was developed by Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and helps minimize water input and planting density while at the same time increasing rice yield. For more SRI information, you may look up the Cornell website. http://sri.ciifad.cornell.edu/. The project is inspected and certified by our first cooperating certifier, BCS Oekogarantie.
From modest beginnings, participation by rice farmers grew to about 250 farmers in the Domrei Romeal rice producer community in 2013. Since the marketing of the rice is extremely successful and demand ever-increasing, mostly due to the efforts of Lotus Foods Inc. and its founders Caryl Levine and Ken Lee, many more farmers are poised to join the project.
|
|
Community Development Planning Session on July 10, 2013 in Phnom Penh
|
The workshop was facilitated by CEDAC's Mr. Keam Makarady and Claudius Bredehoeft of GIZ, who played a crucial role in facilitating the meeting and explaining the FairTSA requirements to the farmers.
The meeting served to understand the FairTSA require-ments and to decide on the use of the Social Premium that Lotus Foods Inc. pays on top of the fair price. Building new rice mills and improving infrastructure are high on the list. In a year's time, the farmers will meet again and evaluate project progress and, if completed, determine the next project phase. In addition, our trained BCS inspector will control the use of the Social Premium fund so as to ensure proper use of the money.
Due to long years of internal strife the infrastructure in Cambodia is not very well developed. Together with Lotus Foods we have decided to initiate an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign for the farmers to generate additional funds for building another rice mill and increasing the number of organic and FairTSA Fair Trade certified farmers.
|
|
First Andean Grain and Cereals Conference: Mariana Zuniga, Managing Director of Ceres Peru, was invited to speak about FairTSA at the conference in August 2013.
ANUGA: Dr. Winfried Fuchshofen, Executive Director of FairTSA, spoke on a panel on Sustainability in Organic Agriculture at ANUGA together with Prof. Dr. Detmers of the Mestemacher Company and Dr. Manon Haccius of German organic retailer Alnatura. With more than 170,000 trade visitors, ANUGA in Cologne, Germany, claims to be the world's biggest food and beverage trade show.
New York University: Dr. Fuchshofen will be a panelist at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in the context of their Food Fest on November15, 2013. The panel will be moderated by Prof.Dr. Gustavo Sentrini, of the NYU Steinhardt School of Food Studies.
International Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA): Dr. Fuchshofen has been invited to speak on "The Fair Trade Landscape and the Role of FairTSA" at the IOIA annual membership meeting and advanced training in Costa Rica at the Tilajari Hotel Resort & Conference Center. Since the first Spanish-language training by the National Organic Program of the USDA kicks off the event, it is expected that many certifiers and inspectors from Central and South America will participate. If any of the readers are inspectors or certifier representatives participating in the event and wish to discuss FairTSA in person, please contact Dr. Fuchshofen at [email protected] to set up a meeting in advance.
|
| News from our Cooperating Certifiers |
|
In the spring of 2013. Biocert India joined FairTSA as its newest cooperating certifier. Being the first Indian IOAS-accredited certification agency, they are also accredited under the Indian organic law (APEDA), NOP, JAS, and the European organic law.
Learn more about our other Cooperating Organic Certifiers via the quick links.
|
|
|
