Sustainable Agriculture and Fair Trade Practices

Organic and natural agriculture promotes a less toxic environment by reducing pesticide and synthetic fertilizer pollution. It protects future generations by building healthy soil and enhancing biodiversity. Many studies confirm better flavor and improved nutrients like antioxidants in organically grown products. Organic and natural farmers doubly benefit by earning a profitable living while farming in harmony with the surrounding environment.

Crops depend on soil nutrients and the availability of water. When farmers grow and harvest crops, they remove some of these nutrients from the soil. Without replenishment, land suffers from nutrient depletion and becomes either unusable or suffers from reduced yields. Sustainable agriculture depends on replenishing the soil while minimizing the use of non-renewable resources.

Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals: environmental stewardship, farm profitability, and prosperous farming communities.

While the term is not regulated, generally sustainable agriculture is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane.

Here are characteristics of sustainable farms:

• Use a range of natural pest controls, such as beneficial insects, careful weather monitoring and scouting.
• Use the least toxic pesticides when natural methods don't work.
• Improve soil by natural methods, such as crop rotation and cover crops.
• Protect clean drinking water and fish habitat by providing buffer zones in riparian areas.
• Provide wildlife habitat and encouraging residency by growing some year round vegetative cover for shelter and food.
• Take into consideration quality of life issues for farm workers and the community when making daily farm management decisions.
• And continually improve farming practices to make them more environmentally sound, socially just and economically viable.

Fair Trade

Over the past decade, many NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) have been working in economically disadvantaged agricultural regions around the globe to organize cooperative trade systems in which growers receive a fair price and a living wage for their products. The movement has also been promoting ecologically sound growing and foraging practices, workplace safety, and gender equality.

HQO is committed to supporting fair trade and ecologically sustainable farming practices worldwide. Previously, Organic Herb Trade partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Siberian Tiger Project, which is working in the Russian Far-East to curtail the poaching of endangered Siberian tigers and their prey. This pilot program pays a premium to local people who gather organic medicinal plants and also agree to restrict their hunting in the tigers’ habitat.

HQO products that are available with fair trade or other socially/environmentally conscious certifications are marked with an (FT) after the ingredient name on our product lists. Please ask us for certification details. We expect to have an increasing selection of these items as they become available for certification.

As more fair-trade-certified and sustainability harvested products become available, HQO expects to offer an increasing selection of them.