Journalist Mason Inman from the New Scientist magazine interviewed Fair Tracing Project Manager Dr Dorothea Kleine for his article “Barcode’s could reveal your food’s credentials” which has just appeared in this week’s issue. In it, Inman cites the Fair Tracing project:“Meanwhile, an online initiative called the Fair Tracing Project aims to publicise how farmers in poor countries are treated by the multinational companies that sell their produce in the west. Farmers use mobiles to upload photos and videos “so they can tell a story about the labour conditions they’re working under”, says Fair Tracing team member Dorothea Kleine of Royal Holloway, University of London. Kleine and her colleagues add this to data on how the goods travel from farm to store, including the amount that packagers, shippers, and retailers get paid along the way.
So far they have completed case studies on Chilean wine (see diagram) and Indian coffee. Customers in stores should eventually be able to photograph a product’s bar code with their phone, and be directed to the relevant charts and videos.”
See the diagram: http://tinyurl.com/lxup24
This is the second time Fair Tracing appeared in the New Scientist, and this time we were also able to point to the other projects we collaborate with in the newly formed Ethical Consumer Information System (ECIS) network. Of these, the GoodGuide Project (www.goodguide.com) was also mentioned in the article.
The link http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227126.500 appears not to be working.
New Scientist moved the page. I have taken out the link. Hope interested readers can find it in the hardcopy.