‘Ethical trade codes becoming money-making racket’

While the Big Three US automakers returned to Capitol Hill last week to present yet another case for a $25 billion bankruptcy bail-out, Stuart Symington had more pressing concerns that touch the lives of all South African fruit growers and exporters. Invited to speak on “Ethical Trade in Global Supply Chains” at the recent World Export Development Forum in Geneva, Symington, CEO of the Fresh Produce Exporters’ Forum (FPEF), asserted that just as the global financial scenario had gone largely unchecked, so too could it rub off on the worldwide retail sector – if left unchecked. Calling on the UN and the International Trade Centre to establish a buy-supply forum for international trade, Symington suggested that this forum could be a “mediatory conduit” through which more ethically sustainable buying practices of major retailers could be encouraged. This would enable the developing and developed worlds to trade on a more even footing with one another. “Perhaps it is a little easier to understand now why farmers and their exporters feel so helpless – and somewhat demotivated – when retailers force them, largely at their own cost, to comply with ethical trade codes at farm level. “The South African fruit industry does not deny the importance of addressing issues such as labour rights, security of tenure, race and gender discriminations, labour broker practices, illegal evictions and migrant worker rights.” Sad to say though, admits Symington, that the implementation of ethical trade at farm level has “invited unpleasantries”, such as the plethora of competing codes that attract disruptive and costly farm audits with no attempt to “harmonise retailers’ approaches”. All of which leads to double standards, from which one can only conclude ethical trade is fast becoming “another competitive tool and moneymaking racket.” This leaves room for a threefold, principled approach to be adopted: • Ethical trade is not just about supplying an ethically produced product, but rather about creating an ethically sound business trade chain; • Buyers’ purchasing behaviour should be as ethical as the ethically produced products that they demand, otherwise it is “sheer hypocrisy”; • Internationalising retailers, through whom the bulk of product is channelled to global consumers, should no longer be left to operate in a regulatory void. If they can’t self-correct, some form of regulation should be introduced to effect a more palatable balance of power between buyers and suppliers. “The current business model is not sustainable in the longterm and does little to uplift the virtues of capitalism,” says Symington, concluding his remarks with a word of Mahatma Gandhi’s wisdom: “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” • Symington was in Switzerland at the invitation of the International Trade Centre, a division of the United Nations.