Aaron Kardell

Continued globalization of our economy is inevitable. Sometimes this is visible and obvious. You can choose to buy a foreign car or an American car. However, even such a visible distinction often isn’t representative of the entire picture. “American” cars may be made by American companies but built in Mexico. Another “American” car might be assembled in the U.S., but be comprised largely of imported parts. Conversely, “foreign” cars may be made by companies listed on a foreign stock exchange and built here in America, sourced largely with American-made parts.

Most new cars will have a label identifying which country the car was assembled in and percents identifying the major regions where the parts for the car came from. In some abstract sense you can know where and how your car was made.

Typically your clothes will have a label identifying what country they were made in. Have you ever thought about who made those clothes or in what working condition they were made with? It’s usually pretty hard to identify the factory it was made in, or in what working conditions.

What about the food we eat? In my hand I have an oats & chocolate energy bar. The label identifies 27 ingredients that make up this energy bar. I’m not sure what half of these ingredients are. What’s “maltodextrin”, “natural flavor”, or “color added”? I may be uncertain about what these ingredients are, but I have no idea where any of them came from. I can see that the bar is “distributed by” a company here in Minneapolis, but there’s no information on where the factory is that produced the bar or much less where the individual ingredients came from.

I recently learned that a significant amount of cocoa is harvested by children in forced labor (aka slavery) in West Africa. More specifically, 284,000 children toil in abusive labor conditions in West Africa’s cocoa fields. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Many of my go-to snacks – like the aforementioned energy bar – contain chocolate. While surely some of the chocolate I eat contains cocoa that wasn’t harvested by child slaves, it is inescapable that I have consumed large quantities of chocolate that came from the labor of child slaves. Wow.

So, what can we possibly do about this? Can an individual really make a difference? Well, for one, I’m going to start by eating significantly less chocolate. For whatever reason, this is harder than it seems. My favorite expensive coffee drinks contain chocolate. My cheap (money and calorie-wise) go-to snacks contain chocolate. However, I’ll work on finding alternatives.

But what if there was an opportunity to turn this would-be curse into a blessing? You’re probably familiar with fair trade coffee. But did you know that there are a whole host of other things that can be purchased fair trade? There are fair-trade options for chocolate, jewelry, clothing, handbags, and many other items. Buying fair trade ensures that workers receive a sustainable wage.

As the preceding video said – if every “churchgoer” bought just one fair-trade item per year, it would lift 1,000,000 people out of poverty for that year. Suddenly, there’s an opportunity to make a difference. It can be overwhelming to think about where everything we buy comes from. And, short of making everything ourselves or buying everything locally, it’s nearly impossible to know with certainty that everything we buy and consume was produced with sustainable labor. However, we can all commit to buying a portion of fair-trade produced goods.

Doing so not only benefits the families and individuals that helped produce the goods, it helps to send a message to industries that we actually care about this. It’s no longer difficult to purchase fair-trade coffee – most coffeehouses and supermarkets have fair-trade coffee options for purchase. If enough people voice their opinion with their purchasing habits, imagine seeing fair-trade candy bars at your supermarket or convenience station in the not-too-distant future.