In the summer of 2007, shoppers at some food co-ops in the upper
Midwest encountered a new label on their produce: “Local Fair
Trade.” Seasonal staples such as cucumbers, squash, and broccoli
were the first to don the label, a large, hard-to-miss sticker
symbolizing the union of two approaches to sustainable food:
eating food grown locally, and purchasing food traded fairly.
We’ve gotten used to a variety of labels on our food. There’s
“organic,” which used to connote ideas like “pure” and “natural”
but these days technically means food certified as organic by
the USDA (if domestically produced) or by the food’s country of
origin. “Local” usually means food grown or produced within a
few hundred miles of its selling location. And “fair trade” is
seen most commonly on popular imports such as coffee and
chocolate; the label means that the food’s growers or producers
were paid a decent wage. So what does “local fair trade” mean?
According to Erik Esse, the director of the Minneapolis-based
Local Fair Trade Netwo