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Coldplay singer Chris Martin, one of the leading celebrity campaigners for fair trade, went to Ghana with Oxfam to find out how trade injustice affects poor farmers.
During his five-day trip, Chris met peasant farmers, visited markets selling cheap food imported from Europe and the US, and campaigned against global trade rules that are trapping people in poverty. He was able to see that the problem isn’t that the farmers don’t have the produce – it’s that no-one will buy it, because of the low-cost imported food available.
“They grow cheap tomatoes in Ghana,” Chris said. “But I saw market stalls stacked high with cheap tinned tomatoes shipped in from Italy. If Ghana tries to export goods to Italy they are whacked with tariffs. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Tomato farmers in Ghana see their crops ripen and begin to perish. They are then offered the lowest price possible, or their crops are left to rot. Canning their tomatoes would make all the difference – but a canning factory in the area Chris visited had been sold off and was now unused. Ghanian rice
farmers are faring no better in the face of massive imports of US rice sold for less than the cost of production.
Chris talked to farmers and tribal chiefs about the problems they face. He travelled to northern Ghana and gave an impromptu speech at the inauguration of the Peasant Farmers Association. Farmers came from all over the country to attend and plan how to protest to the government about their situation.
In Chris’s words: “We are making money out of these people and they can’t afford to send their kids to school. We’ve got to keep banging on about fair trade. If people knew what these trade laws created they would be shocked.”
More about trade at www.maketradefair.com >>
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