Local Fair Trade Fest touts ethically produced goods

Chocolate.

For many, the word evokes instant cravings for the velvety smooth, rich, fudge-like treat.

For some, however, it offers less appealing images: children of 9 or 10 swinging machetes to cut down cocoa pods, spraying dangerous pesticides on crops without protective equipment, deprived of education, family and freedom.

Abuses in the cocoa industry as well as in the production of coffee, tea, sugar, bananas, mangos, wine, grapes, rice and flowers have prompted the international free trade movement.

Fair trade is a system of exchange that ensures that the products consumers purchase have been ethically harvested or created, traded and marketed.

“It means that the farmer who grows coffee beans in South America gets fair market value for his beans. It means that no slave labor has been use in the production process,” said Susan Posey, founder and organizer of Norfolk’s annual Fair Trade Festival, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday at Waterside Festival Marketplace.

Posey believes that fair trade can solve many of the world’s problems.

“It could solve poverty, homelessness – probably terrorism as well, because if people had a decent job, they’d have something to lose,” she said. “So many evils result from paying people a wage they can’t live on.”

A 2004 U.S. State Department report concluded that more than 119,000 children work under “worst forms of child labor” in Africa’s Ivory Coast, the world’s largest

exporter of cocoa. Many of those children have been sold into slavery, forced to work 12- to 16-hour days on cocoa plantations for little or no pay under brutal conditions. The situation is similar in Ghana, the second-largest cocoa producer.

Posey said one reason she organized the city’s first Fair Trade Festival in 2002 was to promote consumer awareness.

“Most people, if they knew that one candy bar came from a workers’ cooperative and one came from a situation where children were stolen and forced to work, I believe would pick the one that comes from an ethical source – especially if they cost the same,” she said. “I think people just don’t know what’s going on.”

The Fair Trade Festival will feature about 25 vendors who sell ethically manufactured products including wine, jewelry, chocolate, coffee, pottery, beer, textiles and art.

Free entertainment will feature 18 musical acts including Washington’s Scythian, The Rock It Men, Victor Hugo and Headfeather. Local belly dancers will perform from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday.

“A lot of people wait for the festival each year to do their holiday shopping,” Posey said. “You can get some great deals.”

Posey hopes for 4,000 visitors this year. “It’s gotta be the most fun you can have in one place,” she said.

“And you’ll know that you’re making the holidays better not just for your family, but for families around the world.”

Lia Russell, 222-5829, lia.russell@pilotonline.com