In my days as penniless graduate student, I used a buying guide as often as possible. This book rated product manufacturers according to their workplace conditions, as well as on a range of social and environmental issues. Based on the notion that we vote not only with our ballots but with our wallets, the book allowed me to make some choices about how I used my limited funds.

I don’t know if such a guide exists today. The retail marketplace has changed drastically in the past 20 years. Like a chain of small fish being consumed by larger ones, countless small producers have been swallowed up by larger companies. More and more of the brands we believe we are choosing among are actually owned by a handful of corporations.

The same process has occurred with many small organic producers. Stacy Mitchell’s book, “Big Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses” documents how the big chain stores have contributed to this process, and examines the serious economic and social repercussions.

We can still vote with our wallets, though, especially because of the growth of the fair trade movement during this same period. Whether they are large, worker-owned cooperatives, such as Equal Exchange, or smaller outfits started by individuals, such as Dean Cycon of Dean’s Beans (see his book, “Java Trekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee”) fair trade businesses are committed to authentic partnerships with producers and farmers around the world.

Fair trade agreements provide a steady, fair market price for products like cocoa and coffee that are traditionally volatile, and offer premiums that allow growers and producers to improve their standard of living in countries where poverty is the norm and child and slave labor is not uncommon. Organizations such as Equal Exchange are now at work on domestic fair trade programs as well — with Southern pecan farmers and Northeastern cranberry farmers, for example — recognizing that small farmers and producers in the United States also face many obstacles in the current marketplace.

Fair trade encompasses artisanal products, such as the beautiful elephant grass Bolgatanga market baskets that are sold in this country by Alahet Trading Company. Alahet is owned by the Aggudey family, and their trade in these baskets was specifically initiated to create income earning possibilities for women and the disabled in Ghana. Selina Aggudey told me that “the artisans are able to have the benefit of health care, education for their children, good drinking water and nutritious food, shelter, clothing, and other items that most people in developed countries take for granted.”

Fair trade partnerships also work to foster environmental stewardship. I recently spoke with Jenny Gelber, co-owner of Zambezi Organic Forest Honey. She and her husband, Keith, are in their third year of business, working directly with a certified organic farmer collective in Zambia. Their honey comes from the significant population of wild bees in the Miombo forests, an ecologically rich area that is under great development pressure. The Lunda people have a centuries-old relationship with the forest bees.

The Gelbers, former Peace Corps volunteers, originally connected with the beekeepers while living and working in Zambia. The business “began as a way to help prevent deforestation,” Jenny told me. She explained that “Forest honey is a ‘non-timber’ forest product, and is a viable alternative to cutting trees down for timber or charcoal.” This is important in a country that “has one of the highest rates of deforestation” and where farmers usually make “less than $10 a month.”

Since January, I’ve been writing a series of columns on fair trade products for the Honest Weight Food Co-op’s newsletter (see current and archived issues at www.hwfc.com). I’ve been sampling these products, and I must say I’m impressed with their quality. Not to mention the fact that the stories behind them are fascinating and inspiring.

Most of all, I’m excited about the wealth of positive, new relationships springing up across the globe. Whether the product is coffee, tea, chocolate, honey, bananas or baskets, fair trade works to promote practices with great environmental and social benefits. As the Fair Trade Federation states, “Fair trade is not about charity. It is a holistic approach to trade and development that aims to alter the ways in which commerce is conducted, so that trade can empower the poorest of the poor. Fair Trade Organizations seek to create sustainable and positive change in developing and developed countries.”

About the author: Ruth Ann Smalley, Ph.D., is an educator and a certified Eden Energy medicine practitioner with a practice in Albany. She’s also an Honest Weight member worker, and writes a monthly column for the coop’s newsletter.