A year ago we hosted Tomy Mathew at our first Action Forum event at Kickstand Cafe in Arlington, Mass. Tomy works with Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK), a small farmer organization in Kerala, India, that supplies cashews to Equal Exchange. FTAK was formed during the agrarian crisis that set producers in a cycle of poverty and indebtedness; farmers were not getting paid the cost of production for their crop.
Tomy has an interesting perspective on the food industry - a truly holistic and pragmatic view of the interconnectedness of it all. FTAK’s and Tomy’s philosophy on farming encapsulates success in gender equality, biodiversity and food sovereignty. I appreciated his insights in this recent piece in Fair World Project.
The Action Forum, from the very start, has been about trying to foster interconnectedness between producers, Equal Exchange, and consumers, to truly build a community with regenerative solutions to a broken food system. I think part of building something anew requires taking stock and reflecting on the path that got you started. Today, I encourage you to listen to (or read) the recorded audio from Tomy’s visit last year to hear his perspective on Fair Trade and the market.