Valerie celebrates Fairtrade Fortnight 2017

On 28 February 2017 I took part in a Fairtrade Break in Parliament which was held to celebrate Fairtrade Fortnight, to support farmers and workers from developing countries. The event was hosted by my colleague Holly Lynch MP.

When we reach for our favourite food and drink each day without thinking about where it comes from, we may be feeding exploitation. We become part of the problem. The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Fairtrade event helped to spread the campaign’s urgent message: ‘Don’t Feed Exploitation’, as it highlighted that smallholder farmers are responsible for providing the majority of the UK’s tea and coffee, yet 1 in 3 people in Kenya’s coffee and tea growing regions live in poverty; over 2 million children work in hazardous conditions in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana; and the average cocoa farmer in Côte d’Ivoire lives on less than 40p a day.

At the event I met with representatives from Fairtrade towns across all regions of the UK as well as coffee farmer Leonard Kachebonaho (see picture above), who is one of the founders of the Fairtrade-certified co-operative Kaderes Peasants Development Plc (KPD).

Fairtrade Fortnight 2017 runs from Monday 27 February to Sunday 12 March and is a fun-filled highlight of the year, when campaigners, businesses, schools and places of worship show their support for the farmers and workers who grow our food in developing countries.

I am encouraging you to join thousands of poeple across the UK this Fairtrade Fortnight to help our friends, neighbours, colleagues and communities to put Fairtrade in their break and take exploitation out. Here is a link to the website where you can access the Fairtrade Fortnight action guide: http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/get-involved/current-campaigns/fairtrade-fortnight