PREDA FAIR TRADE HAS THE GOAL/AIM TO LIFT PEOPLE FROM POVERTY, HELP THEM TO BE SELF-RELIANT AND HAVE SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS BY GIVING THEM ACCESS TO MARKETS FOR THEIR PRODUCTS THAT PAYS A JUST AND LIVING PRICE, HELPS THEM WITH INTEREST FREE LOANS AND WORKS TO CHANGE AN UNJUST TRADING SYSTEM TO ONE THAT BENEFITS THE EXPLOITED AND THE POOR.
Fair Trade activities were begun in 1975 to provide skills training and an alternative livelihood to young adults and village based crafts people and to address the root causes of exploitation grinding poverty. Today the Preda Foundations Fair Trade activities have expanded throughout the Philippines providing training, marketing assistance, product design, capacity building and interest free production loans to hundreds of artisans. Different producer groups assisted by Preda are making baskets, bags and wallets from recycled drink pouches, fashion accessories , light furniture, pumice stone products and wood carvings and many other items (www.preda.net) Preda provides assistance, loans, marketing help.
Helping the small farmers and cooperatives with fair prices of dried fruits, juices and muscovado sugar. 15 years ago PREDA began helping poor farmers and cooperatives exploited by a cartel of price fixing fruit buying corporations by giving the small farmers higher prices for the farmer’s entire harvest. In time, Preda with partner Profood extended their buying power and are now buying hundreds of thousands of tons of fresh mango for processing to dried mango and puree making and has created competition to the dominating elite buyers’ cartel forcing them to pay higher prices too. Preda and its partner pay higher for pineapples and challenge the multinationals to pay pineapple growers higher prices.
The chemical and sugar free mango fruits (later other tropical fruits) were dried with a unique method developed by an ingenious method by Justin Uy, the founder of the Preda partner Profood. It was done without using chemical preservatives or coloring and making them soft, tasty and toxic free, pure and healthy.
Fruit juices and nectars were then developed and exported to the international market. All Preda dried mangos and other fruits are processed free of chemical and colouring preservatives. They are the healthiest food for young people and the ideal alternative to junk food. Now Preda has deliciously soft and chewy sugar free dried mangos and dried pineapples.
Restraining the price fixing cartels and challenging Dole to pay more. PREDA, working with a dedicated ethical partner, experienced in the processing of dried fruits and fruit concentrate, increased sales and volume of buying of fresh mangos of all sizes at fair prices. This eliminated the exploitative system of the fresh fruit buyers selecting only prime fruit and rejecting as much a half a harvest causing losses to the farmers.
Preda/Profood buying power creates completion and a level buying field. Preda buys the entire harvest respective of size or outward appearance. Because of increasing sales the buying power of the Preda Project with the Partner created a shortage of fresh mangos. The cartel members were unable to get cheap mangos and were unable to fix the low price they were accustomed too. They were forced to offer higher prices to the farmers too.
Giant multinational corporations like Dole and Del Monte has contact farmers locked into growing pineapple for them .They pay low prices (about 3.50 pesos a kilo at most) and forbid the farmers selling to others. However Preda/Profood pays 4.75 pesos a kilo and the farmers are making night deliveries to beat the low multinational price. This is Fair trade challenging the multinationals to pay more. They say we are encouraging the farmers to break their contracts. But it snot true the small farmers offer their pineapple freely without any inducement from Preda other than the higher price.
The unjust price fixing cartel for mango price fixing collapsed. The prices of mangos continued to rise throughout the Philippines. As a result thousands of once impoverished farmers and their families are prospering as never before thanks to Preda Fair Trade. The goal of the Preda team and the partner is to maintain sales and thus increase demand and the farmers continue to benefit.
Preda also buys and processes other tropical fruits to the delight of farmers. Once, low value fruit is getting high prices. The increase in demand has encouraged farmers to plant a mixed orchard of mangos and other tropical fruits. Preda shares earnings with the farmers through interest free loans, village water and sanitation improvement projects, education and teaching management skills.
Going organic and Protecting people and the environment. Preda is presently training farmers to organise themselves and go organic and preserve the environment and improve the quality of the fruit. The project provides funds to help indigenous tribal farmers and their families defend their ancestral rights to the forests and the uphill lands from military backed land grabbers. Two thousand young trees are planted every year as one of the benefits of the project and the once denuded hills are being covered with various kinds of fruit trees to avoid mono cropping. GM foods are opposed and organic farming encouraged.
PREDA CHARITABLE AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT SERVICES.
Together with these development programmes, Preda works for peace and social development through the prevention of child abuse and HIV-AIDS and has a youth organization and a theatre group that travels the world creating global awareness of human rights especially the rights of youth and children. The group plans to visit Ireland and the UK in 2008.
Preda has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize and has received the German and Italian Human Rights awards and the Prix Caritas award of Switzerland. END
