Our neighbors to the north just added a new Fair Trade Town to their growing list. Olds, a town in Alberta, became the sixth Fair Trade Town in Canada. For the members of the Olds community, working to become a Fair Trade town made a lot of sense. Olds is the home of Olds College, an agricultural college where many students learn about the challenges and difficulties that agricultural farmers face around the world. In a news article published on the CTV Calgary website, one Olds citizen and member of the Olds College Student Association, James Papineau, was quoted as saying, "We are an agricultural college, we are an agricultural town, so it is a perfect fit for us…what we do here and what we study and also what we practice is a perfect fit for the fair trade."

The effort to become a Fair Trade Town started with a few individuals coming together and forming a steering committee. Then, they lobbied their town council to gain its support. Olds currently has about a dozen businesses that support Fair Trade by selling Fair Trade Certified products in their stores. The Olds Fair Trade Committee plans to add at least two businesses to that list every year. Says one of the leading members of the steering committee, "Every time we set foot in a store, the choices we make result in a rippling wave effect around the globe. We can all make better, more educated choices to ensure that those waves are helping and not harming people and our planet.”

Congratulations to Olds, Alberta! Seeing successful attempts to gain the status of Fair Trade Town around the world helps make Oakland’s goal seem that much more obtainable.

The information for this post came from the CTV Calgary article (http://bit.ly/082JBc9), and from the TransFair Canada website (http://bit.ly/6IWbat). Fair Trade Towns in Canada are designated based on criteria approved by TransFair Canada. More information about Canada Fair Trade Towns can be found here: http://transfair.ca/en/get-involved/fair-trade-towns.