Gerald A. Herrmann, IFOAM Vice President, stated, “This honor is merited by his life long engagement for changing societal patterns and social injustice. His engagement has influenced the organic movement to a great extent, and he was among the first to advocate a close partnership between the fair trade and the organic movements.”
Mr. Van der Hoff arrived as a worker-priest in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southeastern Mexico in 1980. The Bishop of Tehuantepec, Arturo Lona Reyes, asked him to go up into the mountains – the Sierra – to harvest coffee with the Indian peasants. In 1981, a meeting was held and nearly 150 people showed up; the Union of Indian Coffee-producers of the Isthmus Region (UCIRI – the Unión de Comunidades Indígenas de la Región del Istmo) was created to break away from the control by the "coyotes" and the caciques – the crooks purchasing the peasants produce and the corrupt leaders of local communities - and to be able to benefit from coffee production without having to pay off the intermediaries. UCIRI came to be one of the first farmer cooperatives to introduce organic and fair trade organic certification and to integrate Internal Control Systems (ICS), the organic certification of smallholder producer groups.
Mr. Van der Hoff, a special guest at the Global Compact, spoke of his vision of an economy centered on the human being:
I infinitely thank for the recognition that is expressed in this decoration for the work of the organizations of small producers of Mexico and Central America, in its indigenous majority. With dignity, honesty and joy I will speak in the name of thousands and thousands farmers and workers in the field, to value this granted honor. I feel like their spokesman and I am their servant. First, I would like to thank for the invitation on the part of the President of the Republic of France to be able to participate in this meeting on the contribution and responsibility of companies in this millennium. For the small producers of the field and the poor men of the world, it is of extreme importance. In different forms and responsibilities, we must fight for the communal property of all and all the inhabitants of this planet. Economic and market policies do not exist in a social vacuum. We must take advantage of the diverse experiences of everyone and do everything possible to make structural adjustments to create a world that we yearn for where justice, solidarity, freedom and equality are not the privileges of some, but that are a right and a reality for all. All my life I have lived and fought in these sectors of the society where these rights are left only in the imagination. For that reason, I see a different world, from down and with those down below. It is not the world that reporters cover, but continues to be a fascinating and simultaneously horrific world of the great majorities. I discovered that in practice that the trade of products of a high quality and value was not working in the interests of the small producer. This is why we founded a different market, that now it operates in about 22 countries. It is a market of the poor men, a market niche that attempts to correct the anomalies of the present economy and that puts ethical social rules in place: a producer has the right to payment for a product that covers at least the costs of production, create conditions of development collectively with his own means and necessities. I co-founded this alternative market, which takes to the name Max Havelaar in France and fairtrade in many countries. This market presents or displays a correction to the supposedly free market. We needed an economy where the social and political responsibility for the well being of all and all is essential elements to create conditions of a distribution of the little goods of this planet. To distribute the wealth by means of the market is task and responsibility of all. It is my firm conviction that is possible to create real conditions to make a just world for all. It is question of will and rules of behavior. A wild market damages the economy of the towns, the families and creates social and political problems in the medium and long term. By means of the Right Market, the market of the poor men inside the global market, with its rules, its criteria, its traceability and exigency of physical, human, social and democratic quality, we deliver an attack that serves to improve the market in all and all, including the well-being of our planet, as we are not the owners, but the people in charge of its use. With this decoration, I feel recognition of the arduous work of thousands of poor farmers who offer to the world their eagerness of work, of solidarity, responsibility. For that reason I again thank the President of the French Republic for an honor that I will send to my companions. Thank you very much.