Sarah J caught up with Peter Collins, Church Relations Manager for Traidcraft, about fair-trade shopping, campaigning to tackle poverty and praying into the issues.

Peter Collins

Sarah began by asking Peter to sum up what Traidcraft is all about.

Peter: OK. Traidcraft is one of the pioneers of Fair-trade in the UK. We're helping tens of thousands of producers in almost thirteen developing countries work their way out of poverty and that means a better life for them, their families and their communities.

Sarah: Fantastic. So what would be the difference? The stuff that you do - you actually work alongside people that are producing goods in order for them to get fair-trade?

Peter: Yes.

Sarah: And then some of those goods end up in our supermarkets? And then you'll also be working with slightly smaller producers and getting them up and running? Explain a bit about that to me.

Peter: OK. Well Traidcraft is an organisation in two parts. Through our trading company, and that's probably the aspect of Traidcraft that most people will be familiar with - through our trading company Traidcraft PLC., we offer producers a way into the UK market. Through the work of our charity, which is lesser now I would say, Traidcraft Exchange, we help them gain the skills, the knowledge and the market access they need to trade more effectively whether that's locally or internationally. And of course Traidcraft Exchange also campaigns to change the way the world conducts its trade. To change the rules of trade that keep millions trapped in poverty. So we're offering producers assistance appropriate to their needs but we're also a campaigning organisation trying to make the rules of trade fairer and to deliver real benefit to the millions of poor people around the world.

Sarah: So you do both things then. You're hands on and directly work with people in poverty and also there's a political agenda there in the sense that you're actually campaigning and trying to push for change - for sustainable change to happen.

Peter: Yes, that's right.

Sarah: So give us an example of a recent campaign that you've done and the success you've had with it.

Peter: Well, we've been campaigning very strongly in support of the competition commission review of supermarkets. You may recall earlier this year the competition commission published a report that said that the supply chain basically isn't working. It's actually harming people who supply our food here and overseas. It's a sort of abuse of power by the supermarkets'. They're very dominant in the marketplace and they're using their power to their own advantage. The competition commission is proposing that there should be a supermarket watchdog to better regulate the way supermarkets operate both in terms of their producers and the consumer. And we've been asking people to lobby their MPs and their supermarkets in support of that competition commission recommendation. And it's been very very successful; lots and lots of people have responded sending cards to their MPs and to their supermarkets. Some have even gone along to the MP's surgery and to their local supermarket and handed the cards in personally just to make the point.

Sarah: And what kind of impact does that have on parliament?

Peter: We're told that when an MP gets as few as twenty or thirty cards, letters, phone calls or emails then they take the issue really seriously. The old thought is for every one person who does something ten people feel the same but just haven't got around to acting; so even a few cards sends a signal to an MP that this is an important issue to a significant number of their constituents. I can give you an example; in Fair-trade fortnight this year we ran a joint campaign with the Fair-trade Foundation calling on Gordon Brown to support greater justice in trade. It produced the second largest poll spark (eight thousand cards), that number ten has received this year on a campaign issue. Now that's got to be significant by any standard. So when people say, 'Ah but campaigning doesn't achieve anything', they're wrong - campaigning does actually achieve a lot and it's a very very important activity.

Sarah: And is it the main approach to your campaigns - it tends to be a postcard version that people fill in their details to it and it then ends up going through the letterbox?

Peter: Yes yes. We found that's been the most effective way of campaigning in recent years. And we also do email campaigns and the like. And then we take part in the bigger events like the Trade Justice Movement and Greenbelt. We were very prominent in Make Poverty History and the Jubilee Debt Campaign. We're associated with very very big campaigns but also postcard campaigning we find is very very effective.