AJP was a founding member of The Domestic Fair Trade Association (DFTA), an initiative to promote social justice in the North American food system by bringing accountability to the growing economic sector of fair trade-certified products. Fair trade retail sales were growing exponentially through the decade of the 2000s (topping $1 billion in the U.S. and $2.5 billion worldwide in 2007), but that growth came in large part from the entry of multi-national corporations (such as Starbucks and Nestlé) into fair trade, drawing critiques from the movement and concern over maintaining rigorous and credible standards. North American farmers and farmworkers also wanted to find ways to benefit from fair trade, which up to that point was primarily limited to import commodities from the Global South, such as coffee and chocolate.

The DFTA coalesced in response to these developments. An initial Domestic Fair Trade Working Group came together in 2005 with representatives from five sectors of the food system:

• Farmers and Farmer Co-operatives and Associations; 

• Farmworkers’ Organizations; 

• Intermediary Trading Organizations; 

• Retailers and Consumer Co-operatives and Associations; and 

• Civil Society Organizations and Non-Governmental Organizations. 

These stakeholders collectively elaborated fourteen “Domestic Fair Trade Principles” based on the Rochdale principles for cooperatives, establishing a gold standard for the fair trade industry:

• Family-scale farming;

• Capacity Building for Producers and Workers;

• Democratic & Participatory Ownership and Control;

• Rights of Labor;

• Equity & Opportunity;

• Direct Trade;

• Fair & Stable Pricing;

• Shared Risk & Affordable Credit;

• Long-term Trade Relationships;

• Appropriate Technology;

• Sustainable Agriculture;

• Indigenous Peoples’ Rights;

• Transparency & Accountability; and

• Education & Advocacy.

The initial working group was formed by two farmer cooperatives (Organic Valley/CROPP and Farmer Direct), Equal Exchange, and AJP, with AJP successfully lobbying for the inclusion of farmworkers in the effort. Thirty-seven farmworker representatives from across the US then convened their own domestic fair trade conference in 2007, asserting that domestic fair trade must include equal voice for farmworkers, fair wages, and the right to organize and collective bargaining.

With formal representation from each of the five sectors above, DFTA incorporated as a non-profit member-based organization in 2008, at the same time AJP was piloting its first certifications. A part-time Executive Director supported an eleven-member Board of Directors comprised of two representatives from each sector and one at-large member. The organization drew its support from annual membership dues, which ranged from $200 to $12,500 based on each member organization’s annual revenue. Organizations seeking to join had to complete an extensive application process, requiring members to demonstrate their commitment to trade as a mechanism for social justice and sustainability. 

Over the decade of its official operations, the organization succeeded in convening a cross-sector partnership, facilitated by its diverse membership system, to advance principles of fair trade through education, marketing, advocacy, and endorsements. Participants fondly remembered the festive annual gatherings. These events also proved to be a contentious space where conflicts and disagreements between members came to the surface. Gatherings also typically included a public-facing expo for producers, processors, and allied groups aligned with domestic fair trade principles.

As part of their commitment to maintaining high standards for fair trade, DFTA established an evaluation committee to develop their founding principles into criteria for judging the credibility of different certifications. This committee delivered their evaluations in 2013, but the process was highly contested and drew resistance from established fair trade certifications as well as some farmworker-initiated efforts. One label, Fair For Life, did work with DFTA to improve their standards and process after the evaluation. Others thought the fourteen principles were aspirational and impossible to achieve. Some argued they were being unfairly compared to AJP’s program, the only one to score well on all fourteen evaluation criteria. In the end several programs chose not to cooperate with the evaluation, and some ended their membership in DFTA altogether. FairTrade USA’s departure took place against a backdrop of their split with FairTrade International and criticism over their willingness to work with plantations. These disagreements foreshadowed future arguments (including during the Good Food Purchasing Program’s later effort to rank certifications into different tiers) as well as major scandals (such as the Mexican farmworker union SINDJA’s fight against EFI and FairTrade USA).

Past participants that AJP spoke with in 2025 valued DFTA as a space of encounter: a place where farmworkers, farmers, advocates, retailers, and brands were all thrown together. Multiple people expressed that other good things became possible as side effects of DFTA’s gatherings—relationships of solidarity, learning and support, collaborations on immigrant rights campaigns, a farmworker-owned cooperative farm, and more. Founders of the Food Chain Workers Alliance drew inspiration from mentorship they received through connections at DFTA, as well.

The DFTA did not last long enough to consistently address its founders’ bigger goals, however. One former Executive Director of the DFTA described the lack of buy-in from corporate members:

The organizations and businesses that had more power in the food system weren’t sending the people to the table who actually held that power. I think there was broad agreement that [DFTA] was a good idea. But with the farmworker groups, it was often the CEO or the president, the top or one of the top people who would come to the table…. In terms of some of the larger members, not only was it not necessarily the person who had power [who attended], but it was not necessarily even a person who was in the loop and could make decisions.¹

This lack of long-term commitment—combined with the fallout from the evaluation conflicts—left the DFTA in a precarious state, since the DFTA’s organizational model assumed that better-resourced corporations would provide the majority of organizational funding through their member dues. Those members with greater commitment to the project lacked the resources to fund it on their own. As the natural food brands left the coalition, only nonprofits and farmworker groups remained and the coalition’s financial base collapsed. The remaining members tried to sustain the group as best they could, but this could only last so long. By 2019 the DFTA had effectively ceased operations. 

The DFTA was a sister organization to AJP: the two organizations had a number of founders and leading members in common, and they were intended to serve complementary functions in what was to be a burgeoning domestic fair trade ecosystem. Many of AJP’s closest and most lasting relationships were intertwined with the work of the DFTA. In the years since the DFTA’s decline and closing, AJP has struggled in part due to the absence of the “larger stakeholder” (in Michael Sligh’s words) that DFTA was designed to be. As interviewees reflected, there’s no movement space quite like the DFTA now, where one could find aligned businesses, producers, workers, organizers, and advocates all in one place. For that reason it is missed.