The Fair Trade movement can work in many areas with different crops, but it does not work in Saint Lucia, said Dr. Caela O’Connell, a visiting lecturer from North Carolina State University.

O’Connell pondered the sustainability of alternative food sources as part of an annual anthropology lecture series on Tuesday afternoon.

Fair Trade refers to the idea that fair prices are paid to producers of goods in developing countries. The entire island of Saint Lucia farms Fair Trade bananas for export to the United Kingdom.

“As an anthropologist, I worked in these banana farming communities for 20 months,” O’Connell said. “I learned how they worked with bananas, I learned how they work with Fair Trade…to see for myself what kinds of issues are going on in their farms.”

O’Connell said the people of Saint Lucia got involved with Fair Trade in the early 2000s because they saw it as their best opportunity for more profitable trade. The farmers have since found that they are dependent on meeting Faire Trade requirements, which many resent.

According to O’Connell, Fair Trade uses a certification and audit system to determine whether a country is producing “good food.” This system includes 158 standards that farmers must meet.

“Most of the Fair Trade decisions are made by 26 people representing a number of countries, but mostly European and North American countries,” O’Connell said. “There are not a lot of farmers sitting around that table.”

O’Connell said one of the standards requires that farmers do not use herbicides and pesticides, which is a problem in areas like Saint Lucia that are home to highly invasive species. Saint Lucian water grass sucks nutrients from the soil and must either be cut with a weed wacker or by hand with a machete.

“The theory of Fair Trade versus the practice, in terms of decision making, is really an unfair one in many ways in the Saint Lucian context,” O’Connell said.

According to O’Connell most of the money earned from Fair Trade does not go to the farmers, but instead goes to those at the top of the economic pyramid.