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Ensuring a fair deal

Social Responsibility in the Global Market

Fair Trade in Cultural Products by Mary Ann Littrell & Marsha Ann Dickson

Publishers: Sage, Thousand Oaks

Price: $ 29.95

A VISIT to Ponduru, a small town in AP is a very enlightening experience. The cotton weaves from this place are so fine and almost machine like in their finish and it is truly astonishing to see the rather primitive looms on which they are woven. It is a lso amazing that people living on the edge of poverty can produce such exquisite stuff.

The story is repeated in thousands of villages around the world. Unfortunately dexterous folk like those from Ponduru rarely escape poverty. By the time the products of weavers and craftspersons reach buyers in places like Bombay and Delhi, or even marke ts overseas, their cost would have multiplied several times over. Sadly very little of the final sale price trickles down to the producers themselves.

Seeing the vagaries of a trading system that invariably shortchanges the producer, several NGOs have brought managerial and marketing expertise to ensure them a fairer deal. Mary Ann Littrell and Marsha Ann Dickson have profiled several such organisation s -- they refer to them as Alternate Trade Organisations or ATOs -- in their absorbing and well-researched book Social Responsibility in the Global Market - Fair Trade of Cultural Products.

In this book, the authors have documented the growth -- and in one case the demise -- of several ATOs. However the authors' focus is on five major ones, which work closely with craftspersons' from developing countries to meet design and quality standards acceptable to customers in the United States.

Central to an ATO's concern is the producer of a cultural product, be it a dress or a carpet or even a basket. It is the ATO's desire to ensure a remunerative price for the craftsperson's product that distinguishes it from other set-ups in the trade whos e primary motivation is profit.

Such concern for the producer, the authors are at pains to tell us, emerges from the production of quality products which only will sell. To ensure this the ATOs work closely with the craftspersons through design, production and marketing of the latter's products. How this is done is elaborated at some length in this book.

Where concern turns lopsided and tends to favour the producer over the consumer, the efforts of an ATO are likely to end in failure. This is graphically illustrated in the collapse of Pueblo to People or PtoP. This ATO started by a couple, one of whom ha d worked for the UN in Panama, began modestly enough in 1979 with sales of around $40,000.

By working closely with craftsmen from South America, PtoP developed and marketed a range of products from palm leaf hats and broomsticks to bookshelves and roasted cashew to customers across America. By 1996 PtoP had annual sales close to $4 million. By then nimbler ATOs which were much more customer focused and market savvy had come into the picture forcing the excessively producer oriented and under managed PtoP into liquidation.

However, other ATOs, featured in this book - interestingly named ones like `Ten Thousand Villages',`Market Place: HandWork of India' and ``Aid to Artisans' have done well because they have consistently displayed sound business sense while retaining their idealism and concern for the producers.

Unlike PtoP, these ATOs had the foresight to purchase managerial, marketing and design skills at crucial times when such inputs were essential for their survival. One of these, Hand Work India, started in the slums of Mumbai, had achieved sales in excess of one million dollars by 1997. Other ATOs like SEERV and One Thousand Villages have done even better retailing craft products from all over the world -- proof enough that success at the market place does not have to come by shortchanging anyone.

Adherence to certain principles is what makes for a good ATO and the list in the book says it all:

* Paying a fair wage in the local context.

* Offering equitable employment opportunities.

* Providing healthy and safe working conditions.

* Engaging in environmentally sustainable practices.

* Monitoring and improving product quality.

* Honouring cultural identity as a stimulus for product development and production practices.

* Offering business and technical expertise and opportunities for worker advancement.

* Contributing to community development.

* Building long-term trade relationships.

* Being open to public accountability.

In effect ATOs invert the manner in which business is done. They seek to ensure that the producer is paid the maximum possible for his product and not the minimum necessary to grab it from his hands. By looking at business this way and by eliminating mid dlemen, ATOs seek to give the consumer quality products at very competitive prices.

ATOs are remarkable organisations. However, as the book reveals, the most successful of them are those that enjoy community support, especially of the religious kind. This is so because volunteer-help can be easily found to minimise staff costs. In addit ion church centered sales outlets are readily available and, given the charitable air such places have around them, sales are made more easily than in the traditional market place. The one ATO that did not have such an advantage, PtoP, failed.

This is a well-researched and well written book. It is also a thought provoking one. By the many examples the authors give of ATOs doing successful business without shortchanging anyone, they succeed in showing that trade and business need not be harsh o r inimical to the interests of either producers or consumers. The authors do not gloss over the difficulties faced by the ATOs in their attempts to live up to their ideals. This book comprehensively documents their struggle.

There are lessons to be learnt from this book. It will be well worth the while the people running institutions such as the Central Cottage Industries Emporium and KVIC to read it. Perhaps it will make them more considerate and less exploitative of crafts persons. It is possible that they will pass on to the producers a much larger share of the profits they make. It is even conceivable that the impoverished weavers of Ponduru will be better off one day!

Uday Balakrishnan