El futuro del OEA Argentino

In the aftermath of the Second World War, religious organizations and charities in the United States and Western Europe started to recognize the need for development aid in developing countries in the global South (G. Fridell, 2004a; Moore, 2004; Young, 2003). Whereas grass roots initiatives as such were slowly establishing throughout the US, it was the start of “[…] international development and solidarity movements […] particularly in the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK in the 1950’s and 60’s”, which led to more encompassing mechanism for the promotion of alternative trade and what is became known as the ‘fair trade movement’ (Young, 2003, p. 4). In this context, as multiple scholars have emphasized, a key player and pioneer in the development of this global fair trade movement has been the Dutch Catholic group ‘Stichting S.O.S.’ (hereafter referred to as SOS) (Beerends,

16 _{An extended analysis of the early traces of sustainability in the context of the Dutch coffee sector between the 1960’s and}

1993).Currently known as Fair Trade Original, this organization, which was initially founded in 1959, shifted from developmental aid to an aid through trade approach. The focus on trade entailed the import and sales of products from developing countries, in which they were “[…] driven by their religious commitments to social justice and Christian solidarity” (Fichtl, 2007, p. 4). The sales their products, mainly handicrafts, took place via religious working groups and in churches. Moreover, a new outlet was created with the establishment of the so-called (Third) World Shops. In response to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in 1968 in New Delhi, the Dutch journalist Dick Scherpenzeel coined the idea in the media to open up World Shops (Beerends, 1993). The first World Shop was opened by a Third World group in Breukelen and this new form of outlet for the products of SOS rapidly spread throughout the Netherlands. Within the following four years a network of almost 200 World Shops erupted throughout the Netherlands.

Moreover, apart from being an outlet for handicrafts from developing countries, the World Shops also served as an important network to channel political protests and public campaigns of various left-wing activists groups (WFTO, 2012; Young, 2003). The latter had established themselves throughout the 60’s various and tried to put pressure on the (international) governments and large businesses. An important example as such was the cane sugar campaign, during which cane sugar was sold as an example of how the world trade functions and how rich countries in the West systematically raise high tariff barriers on the importation of products from developing countries. The cane sugar was sold in the World Shops with the political message “by buying cane sugar you give people in poor countries a place in the sun of prosperity” (WFTO, 2012, p. 1). The Cane Sugar campaign via the World Shops can, therefore, be seen as a clear example of the left-wing political activism against rise of global capitalism in the late 1960s. The latter also triggered the entry of coffee within the World Shops.

Before coffee was introduced as an actual product on the shelves of the World Shop, it entered these stores as political campaigns. Two successive coffee boycotts, namely the Angola boycott in the early 1970s and El Salvador boycott in early 1980s, show how numerous left-wing political activist groups started to connect the global trade in coffee with the political situation in the country of origin. In addition, in the early 1970s, SOS started to import the first ‘fair’ coffee directly from a number of small-holder farmers Guatemala. This coffee was sold in the World Shops and provided an alternative to the ‘unfair’ coffee in the mainstream market, in which according to the ATO the power relations were heavily distorted. Throughout the 70’s and early 80’s, the ATOs established relationships with a number of producers in South and the network of World Shops became a small stable channel for the outlet of this coffee (M. Fridell, Hudson, & Hudson, 2008).

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, ‘fair’ coffee had become a relatively familiar concept within Dutch society. Due to pressure of the political activists and the introduction of ‘fair’ coffee, roasters and retailers in the Dutch coffee sector were forced to think about the social and political situation in which their products were produced. Nonetheless, the latter was on a relatively small scale and the political campaigns (e.g. Angola and El Salvador boycott) and public campaigns of NGOs did not change the buying behavior of the consumers in the mainstream market. Altogether, as a former CEO of Fair Trade Original explained, ‘fair’ coffee up until that point had market share of just around 0.2 percent in the Dutch coffee market, which did not pose any threat to the large industry

(Durwael, appendix B.12, p.102). To some extent this was caused by the fact that the alternative trade organization SOS could only import small quantities of the ‘fair’ coffee from a small selection of producing countries, which made it rather difficult to ensure the quality of the different types of ‘fair’ coffee. This, however, was not an issue for the customers of the World Shops in those days, since they mainly bought the ‘fair’ coffee as a sign of solidarity and to make a political statement against capitalist thinking. The introduction of the Max Havelaar certification system in the mainstream coffee market, would, to some extent change the exclusive sales of ‘fair’ coffee via alternative trade channels.