Sandhill Cranberry Farms via Equal ExchangeFair Trade often conjures images of distant lands and foreign cultures. However, Fair Trade is not limited to the Third World and its benefits are realized by all people. There are several organizations within the states that follow the ideal set by the Fair Trade movement.
Equal Exchange has started a "Bringing Fair Trade Home" program which seeks to extend the "model of partnership to family farmers, farm workers, and farmer co-operatives." There are small co-op farms which produce their organic almonds, organic cranberries and pecans. "All are family farmers, and people with a commitment to their communities, to growing delicious, nutritious crops, and to stewardship of the land they work." With U.S. farmers falling from 6.5 million in 1935 to 1.9 million by 2003, and "over 50% of the revenue generated globally by food retailing is accounted for by just 10 corporations", there is a similar need of support to small family farms regardless of their location.
In 2005 Equal Exchange partnered with Organic Valley, the Farmer Direct Co-operative and RAFI-USA, to create the Domestic Fair Trade Working Group with the goal to gather people of similar beliefs from the US and Canada and develop a set of Principles for Domestic Fair Trade "which translates the goals and priorities of the international Fair Trade movement into the regional, domestic and local spheres."
The principles created are similar to the international Fair Trade criteria but tailored to fit small domestic farms: family scale farming, capacity building, democratic co-ops which have participatory ownership and control, rights of labor, equality and opportunity, direct trade, fair and stable pricing, shared risk and affordable credit, long term trade relationships, sustainable agriculture, appropriate technology, indigenous peoples' rights, transparency and accountability, education and advocacy.