On November 28th 2007 CUTS international staged the second debate in its successful "Question Time" style debate series "Soho to Soweto". The debate was entitled "Are supermarkets responsible superpowers?" and was chaired by Howard Reed, Chief Economist at the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR). The panel was made up of Owen Jell, Senior Affairs Officer at the Co-operative, Karen Ellis a Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Barbara Crowther, Head of Communications at the Fairtrade Foundation and Claire Melamed, Head of Trade and Corporates at ActionAid.
Sadly despite many attempts to invite the main UK supermarkets none of them could make it to the event. To set the scene the debate the chair quoted Tesco's corporate responsibility review:
"Some NGOs have claimed that our low prices inevitably lead to worker exploitation…we believe international trade is the key to helping hundreds of millions of ordinary people escape poverty and build better lives for their families…we also understand that although our customer want low prices they also want fair prices and decent standards"
Reed contrasted this with a quote from the Economist Raj Patel's new book Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System:
"The highest temple of the modern food system is the supermarket, through its decision… the supermarket buying desk can fire the poorest farm workers in South Africa. Flip the fates of coffee growers in Guatemala or tweak the output of paddy terraces in Thailand … downward pressure on costs is whipped through the supply chain".
During the debate the audience posed challenging questions to the panel, which allowed the panel to explore this contentious topic in some detail.
Claire Melamed stressed how much potential the UK supermarkets have to do good; over £7 million pounds is traded per day between UK supermarkets and developing countries. She pointed out that instead of helping developing countries supermarkets are forcing down standards, making jobs more casual, and forcing conditions for worker conditions to fall further. She concluded that the solution lies with us the consumers as 75% of all spending on food goods in the UK goes to supermarkets, if we chose more carefully how we spent our money we could help farm workers in developing countries. She also called for a regulator to be created in the UK that would set minimum standards for supermarkets to adhere to.
Barbara Crowther reiterated the idea that supermarkets have the power to be friends or foes! She also condemned supermarkets for passing risk on to the producers rather than bearing it themselves. Citing examples of how supermarkets can be converted from profit seeking giants to forward thinking caring businesses that provide long term contracts and supports to farmers she gave the audience hope that supermarkets can be persuaded to be responsible.
Karen Ellis continued this theme by stating that supermarkets can have a positive impact to growth and development in developing countries and that they do create many jobs and give people incomes. She also suggested that a good for development label should be developed which would recognise that it is not just Fairtrade products that promote development, but a far wider range of supermarket goods. This proposal brought sharp criticism from a number of the panelists.
The Co-ops Owen Jell showcased how his company is trying to support farmers "in the south" through Fairtrade and other ethical policies. However he criticised the major UK companies for only just beginning to realise this. UK Consumers care more than ever about where their food has come from and what process it has come through to get there. He stressed that the way forward is to work with NGOs that work on the ground and that have relationships with local communities in the global south.
Perhaps the best question came from the ex-CUTS employee Susannah Christie who asked "aren't campaigns to slow global warming by eating local food also penalising farmers in the global South?" Claire Melamed agreed with this saying that the campaigns against global warming need to be put into perspective as a very small percentage of UK food is imposed by air. Crowther concurred, citing examples of supermarkets labelling food as "imported by air" to warn customers that they had a high carbon footprint, however unfortunately many shoppers assumed that these produce were fresher and chose them over local produce! The debate continued jumping from berating unfair subsidies in the Europe to calling for customers to contact supermarkets as well as taking care in what products they buy as this will ensure supermarkets better understand the public's buying decisions.
The evening concluded with guests continuing the debate informally over FairTrade refreshments until the caretaker ushered us out of the hall.
