To Ecuador, With Love

Image Gallery image courtesy of Transfair USA/ Sean Garrison

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On a clear day, Norma and Marcos Toapanta have a spectacular view of Cotopaxi, Ecuador’s highest active volcano, from their small home. Today, however, the mountain is swathed in clouds and fog, and a light rain falls as Norma leads a group of visitors down a path worn through tall grass.

The air smells of wet earth and manure. A cow pauses to watch the unusual parade of foreign visitors, who are here to see for themselves whether their efforts back in the United States are paying off.

There is nothing special about Norma’s house, a rectangle of concrete blocks with a cement floor, split into a few small rooms. Nothing special, except that the house belongs to Norma and Marcos, who welcome guests as proudly as if they were showing off a sprawling hacienda. Marcos points to a nearby dwelling made of weathered wood and tin. That’s where they used to live, with his parents and too many other people to count, he explains with a laugh.

Their new house has a kind of rooftop patio where the Toapantas can take in the majesty of the surrounding Andes. Marcos points to rebar extending past the roofline. Someday, he says, he will add a second floor. Marcos is, finally, a man with a future.

A month or so earlier, thousands of miles away in Oakland and Austin and other cities, pallets of Ecuadoran roses arrived in Whole Foods Market stores. They were huge and beautiful, with heads the size of softballs in deep reds, pinks, and purples.

Even though they were more expensive than other roses, they flew off the shelves. The customers were undoubtedly thinking about loved ones, not about Norma Toapanta, when they bought the roses.

But standing in her kitchen, Norma is thinking of them.

“It is because of fair trade that I have this house,” she says.

The Toapantas work at a nearby rose farm, Agrocoex, one of nine farms in Ecuador that sell Fair Trade Certified flowers to Europe and the United States. The program, run by Oakland-based TransFair USA, ensures that any flowers with the Fair Trade Certified stamp were produced by farms where strict environmental and labor standards are met.

Autonomous inspectors visit the farms every year. They look for use of harsh chemicals, pore over books documenting overtime pay, then interview workers to make sure their experience matches the records. They look for forced child labor, which is prohibited, and make sure that employees participate in a workplace democratization process. And they look for stories like the Toapantas’.

The Toapantas’ home was built as a result of TransFair USA’s fair trade premium, a portion of the flowers’ retail price (12 percent) that importers direct into a bank account controlled by a workers committee. The workers then decide how to best use the funds to invest in their community. At Agrocoex, they offered small loans to workers who wanted to build their own homes. The Toapantas took out half a dozen such loans and built theirs, wall by wall.

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