Fair Trade

Forgot to buy your friend a gift from your last trip to Africa? Or maybe you'd like to fill your house with cool handmade gifts from India. TenThousandVillages.com has your back. The well-established nonprofit program works with artisans around the globe to sell their handicrafts and, in turn, give those who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed a fair wage. What's hot: Shopping fair-trade items from around the world.

I love love. When it comes to Valentine's Day, though, I'd rather skip the whole ordeal and enjoy a date night with my husband on any other night in February. The only thing more dreadful than prix fixe Valentine's meals are the restaurants packed with people slogging through multi-course dinners on forced dates. Almost as bad: Gaudy bouquets with baby's breath. And a close runner-up: Hallmark's tacky version of hearts. “Succumbing in haste to the pressure to be romantic and generous because one holiday dictates we should act this way hardly honors a true and enduring relationship,” writes Iris Krasnow on the Huffington Post.

Judging from the cover photo and article by Robert Hilburn, the pop music scene in Japan is as big a joke there as it is here. MIKE FERANTE Rowland Heights

After years of living in the mountains of northern Nicaragua as an agricultural aid worker trying to make life better for the country's poor farmers, Paul Rice woke up and smelled the coffee - specifically, fair-trade coffee. That was 12 years ago. Today, Rice heads Fair Trade USA, an Oakland nonprofit that is the country's leading certifier of fair-trade products. Such certification helps farmers living in countries with emerging economies receive a fair price for coffee, tea, chocolate, rice and other products they produce instead of selling at the lower market price to a middleman.

We were discouraged to learn from "Coffee's Bitter Harvest" (Oct. 5) what a small fraction of coffee consumed in this country (less than 0.2%) is "fair trade," meaning that the coffee farmer is guaranteed a payment that provides a livable income. Your readers may like to know that they can easily have fair-trade coffee shipped to them by one of a number of firms, many of which are listed on the Web at www.fair tradefederation.com. Not included in that listing is a firm in Montana from which we ourselves order fair-trade coffee: www.coffeetraders.

Question: I take advantage of a lot of refund offers, both at the grocery store and by mail. In one particular instance, I sent in the required proof of purchase and sales receipt to Land O' Lakes Butter and Cheese with the required form. I was to receive a $1 cash rebate plus two 25-cent coupons. Instead, I received six coupons for a total of $1.20, with the "excuse" that I have enclosed. What I want to know is, what does the California Food and Agricultural Department have to do with rebates?

Early this month Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher traveled to Tokyo to make the case for "fair trade." He warned Japan's government and auto makers against overly aggressive price cutting. The implied threat was that if Japanese producers cut their prices to U.S. buyers, the United States would begin an investigation into "dumping"--selling cars below cost. This is one of many examples of our government using the language of fair trade against U.S. consumers' interest. U.S.

The Bush administration Monday accused 63 trading partners, including China and the European Union, of erecting unfair barriers to American exports. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab released the new report, which the administration is required to prepare to inform Congress of its priorities in trying to tear down trade barriers.

Soaring coffee prices mean good times for peasant growers, but because financial speculation in part is fueling the prices, the high prices eventually could threaten suppliers of organic and other "socially conscious" coffees. U.S. retail coffee prices have risen more than 20% over the past 12 months and more than 57% in commodity markets. It's a windfall for growers after nearly a decade of horrible prices. "We haven't seen this kind of price in many, many years," said Linbano Cruz Alvarado, an organic grower who belongs to Union Majomut in Mexico's mountainous southern state of Chiapas.

Sometimes, a cup of coffee is more than just a cup of coffee. That, at least, is the fervent belief of two Arizonans, one a buttoned-down Presbyterian minister, the other a tie-dyed Roman Catholic renegade. They are convinced that a steaming cup of cafe arabica could do nothing less than help solve the problem of illegal immigration. And that's just for starters. They also believe it can bring together liberals and conservatives, fulfill the Old Testament's prophetic vision of a "new heaven and new earth," and bring the wolf together with the lamb.

NICARAGUA Fair-trade culture Global Exchange runs what it calls "reality tours" — trips that give insight into what a place is really like, as opposed to what the typical tourist sees. During a nine-day Nicaragua itinerary, participants get immersed in the world of fair-trade agriculture. The experience includes living with and working alongside members of a fair-trade coffee cooperative, as well as visits to non-fair-trade farms for context. Also on the schedule are meetings with officials from development organizations, cooking classes, tours of colonial towns, excursions to volcanoes, a folk-music concert, a natural-medicine workshop and a stop at an organic-chocolate factory.

Forgot to buy your friend a gift from your last trip to Africa? Or maybe you'd like to fill your house with cool handmade gifts from India. TenThousandVillages.com has your back. The well-established nonprofit program works with artisans around the globe to sell their handicrafts and, in turn, give those who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed a fair wage. What's hot: Shopping fair-trade items from around the world.

Re: David Lazarus' consumer column, "Stimulus proposal revives bad idea," Feb. 1: Kudos for the excellent article on the "buy American" provisions in the stimulus bill. As a former chair of the U.S. International Trade Commission, I know well what can happen when protectionists take control of economic policy: Less competition will lead to higher prices and lower quality. Protectionism and Buy America provisions will only exacerbate and prolong the recession. Susan Liebeler Malibu -- Lazarus fell for the usual "economist perspective" on foreign trade.

The Bush administration Monday accused 63 trading partners, including China and the European Union, of erecting unfair barriers to American exports. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab released the new report, which the administration is required to prepare to inform Congress of its priorities in trying to tear down trade barriers.

Re "Go global," editorial, Feb. 1 Apparently the ivory-tower editors of The Times don't understand the idea of competition. They castigate the "narrower interests" that can't handle competition. Outside of the oil companies and the Big Three automakers, I don't know of many people who don't want competition. But what they want is fair competition. How can a worker in Ohio compete with labor in China or India? What company wouldn't want to pay 25 cents an hour for labor over there instead of $12.50 plus benefits in this country?

Sunil Shrestha knows all about inventory and cash flow from his years operating Dairy Queen and IHOP franchises. But nothing in his entrepreneurial career prepared him for his current challenges. What do you do when a South African supplier can't deliver on time because the only woman who knows how to make its intricately beaded baskets has died? What is a reasonable price to pay poor Indonesians who are weaving bags out of recycled garbage?