For ten years, the Fairtrade movement has been trying to win a better deal for farmers and producers all too easily exploited by multinational companies.

Bruce Whitehead looks at how a more equal relationship has helped Rwanda recover from a bloody civil war.

TEN years ago, Rwanda became a household name, but for all the wrong reasons. At least 800,000 people were killed in ethnic violence. Gemima Mukashyaka lost her parents and all but two of her brothers and sisters in the genocide.

With much of the workforce wiped out, women like Gemima were forced to take up coffee farming themselves. Gemima's children helped her in the fields, but couldn't go to school. And the decimated coffee industry had neither the quantity nor the quality to fetch a good price. Simple things, like lack of clean water to wash the beans properly, meant that buyers rejected the crop. With little income, Gemima had no money to spend on medicines or other essentials.

What happened in Rwanda was horrific. But the main threat to growers in developing countries now is low prices. The scrapping of international quota agreements which kept coffee supply and demand in balance, and recent trade liberalisation, have contributed to over-production, driving prices down. This has brought starvation, or at best economic hardship to growers' communities.

Price fluctuation can happen for any number of reasons: In 2001, Hurricane Iris destroyed almost the entire Belize cocoa harvest, used to make chocolate. Such acts of God may push prices up, but that is small comfort if you have nothing to sell.

And it's not just prices that need to be protected. In banana cultivation, over-use of chemicals has been linked to severe birth defects in workers' families. Those who protest against the health risks are intimidated, and in Colombia some have been murdered as a warning to others. Similar risks are run by workers demanding better pay - in Nicaragua some banana employees receive $1 a day.

So what can be done to help? The Fairtrade Foundation (which is celebrating its tenth birthday during Fairtrade Fortnight, from March 1-14) has been working to establish a more profitable and stable trade relationship between growers and buyers.

THE Fairtrade mark on a product guarantees that a fair price, at least covering the cost of production, will be paid to the grower. It also provides an additional margin - the Fairtrade premium - which means that instead of just getting by (but going without when prices are low, or the harvest is poor) producers can invest surplus income in their communities. They might install sanitation, or buy medicines or books for their children. Fairtrade contracts also allow growers to plan, and to handle the unexpected.

In Rwanda, this approach has brought dividends. Six years ago, Gemima Mukashyaka joined a few Rwandan growers to improve their clout in negotiating prices with buyers. The Abahuzamugambi Bakawa Co-operative was born. By 2002, it had made a small profit. With better quality and bigger scale, the growers were now able to go after the premium market.

Enter Union Coffee Roasters of London, who now supply Sainsburys with Rwanda's only Fairtrade coffee. "Traceability and increasing consumer awareness in the UK had a huge part to play in developing a market for the product," says Jeremy Torz, a director of Union Coffee. "The Maraba Bourbon is a variety much prized by connoisseurs, and we are proud that the Co-operative growers view us as the ambassadors of their exceptional coffee."

By developing a market for her coffee, Union Roasters have given Gemima Mukashyaka something really precious. "Now I can see hope for the future and a better life," she says. Because Fairtrade tries to be exactly what it says on the label - fair - she can now afford healthcare and her children's education. And the heavy work is now done by the Co-operative.

But the problems facing small-scale growers have as much to do with international regulations as with local conditions. Trade rules often make it hard for small producers to compete against big business. Brian Namata, who's in Britain for Fairtrade Fortnight, is a sugar grower from Malawi. "Subsidised sugar from the European Union is often cheaper in Malawi than locally-produced sugar," he says.

HARRIET Lamb, Fairtrade's energetic director, spent years working for the World Development Movement, hassling companies like Del Monte to recognise trade unions, and campaigning for fairer trade rules. "The World Trade Organisation talks in its constitution about sustainable development," she says.

"But in fact WTO rules do not take social and environmental needs into account. It's time for the rules to be changed to enable fairer trade, by lowering the tariff barriers which stop poorer countries selling into Europe for example, and by ending unfair subsidies that make it impossible for poor farmers to compete."

Still, however hard the growers or campaigners may try, shoppers still have to pay over the odds to make the scheme work. Dr Hugh Phillips, a retail psychologist at Bournemouth University who studies shopping habits, has noticed how the purchasing decision has changed from being solely about price. "The consumer doesn't categorise things as neatly as dieticians and politicians," he says. "They say: 'this is good for me and my family'. Not just taste or purity; ethical shopping is an end in itself. And the figures show it's a growing trend."

In 2002, the value of ethically marketed goods and services in Britain increased by 13 per cent to £6.9bn, according to the Co-operative Bank. The market research group Leatherhead Foods International forecasts Fairtrade's share of this to rise to around half a billion pounds by 2007. From just three products in 1994, Fairtrade has grown to over 250 items, including sugar, honey, snack bars, bananas, mangoes, grapes, juices and wine.

With just one exception, the main supermarket chains in the UK now sell Fairtrade products. This week, to mark Fairtrade's tenth birthday, Tesco is launching the first ever Fairtrade flowers (roses), and adding a further 30 products to the 40 Fairtrade lines it already offers. Even Marks & Spencer, the only retailer not offering Fairtrade products, has launched a code of practice requiring traceability and minimal pesticides in food production - both key Fairtrade principles.

All this is having an effect: between 2000 and 2002, sales of Fairtrade products grew by 90 per cent - impressive for any industry, let alone one which sets such high standards.

But however much the WTO, the US and the European Union might argue about how best to liberate commerce, free trade is not always fair trade. Ultimately the only way for people in developing countries to escape from poverty is for us to pay a fair price for their produce. Although Dr Phillips thinks that is now happening, he says campaigning needs to get more aggressive: "Fairtrade has been too precious. They need to do more branding and bully the retailers to give better exposure to Fairtrade products."

Maybe so, but some are doing their bit. Sainsburys is the sole supplier of Rwandan Fairtrade coffee, with stacks of it given prominent shelf-space. So it's no wonder Gemima Mukashyaka is smiling on the customers, literally; it's her face on the label.