UCSD student group gets agreement on fair trade policy

After a five year campaign, UCSD has signed the strongest fair trade policy of any university in the nation, according to a press release from the Student Sustainability Collective on the campus.

The UCSD policy makes a “commitment to promote Fair Trade Certified TM Products ... support livable wages, humane working conditions, and guarantees against the use of child labor.” In cooperation with TransFair USA and the national Fair Trade Universities Working Group, UCSD is pursuing the status of a “Fair Trade University.”

The policy had been in the works for over five years. All future food and vendor contracts at the university are mandated to require 100 percent Fair Trade Coffee, Fair Trade Tea and Fair Trade Sugar at all locations on campus.

“This is more than simply a victory for the university or for the students, who have worked hard on this policy over the past five years, this is a victory for the farmers who have been working for trade justice for generations,” said Yuki Murakami, co-President of the UC San Diego Chapter of Amnesty International.

The UC San Diego policy follows the commitment made by the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh in 2008, which became the first Fair Trade University in the U.S. by adopting the British Fair Trade University campaign standards.

“At UC San Diego, the turning point came when Chancellor Mary Anne Fox and the Director of Housing and Dining Services, Mark Cunningham, both expressed their support for our campaign” said UC San Diego Student Sustainability Collective (SSC) Co-Founder, Chris Westling.

The Student Sustainability Collective was founded in Spring 2009 as a student-controlled component of the newly opened UC San Diego Sustainability Resource Center. Th

The policy is available online at https://