Fairtrade: is it as Fair as it Sounds?

The term "Fairtrade" has been gaining steady acknowledgment since the 1940s - and justifiably so. After all, when consumers pay just a little more for products like organic coffee, bananas, chocolate and even clothes, farmers are guaranteed a fair price for their goods and labour. So, the fact that over 2,500 product lines in the UK now carry the Fairtrade mark - not to mention that Britain spent over £290 million on fair trade coffee, food, furniture and clothing last year (an increase of 46% on the previous year) - should seem like a good thing, right?

Not quite, as many people are now questioning the effectiveness of the fair-trade practice - or more specifically, whether the support of Fairtrade purchase can actually damage the progress of developing world farmers. Many are claiming that a focus on fair prices for poor farmers doesn't necessarily address issues of mechanisation and industrialisation - radical changes that might enable farmers in developing countries to break out of the poverty cycle. In other words, they believe Fairtrade just encourages Third World farmers to accept and settle for just a bit more than they were originally getting - which still leaves farmers at a level of dependence.

Steve Daley of the Worldwrite charity told the BBC: "How can a few extra pennies a day from Fairtrade be celebrated as an outstanding achievement?"

Daley cites a report from the Financial Times last September, which revealed that a group of fair trade coffee farmers in Peru were getting 10 soles (about US$3) for working a ten-and-a-half hour day, in comparison to the 8 soles (about US$2.40) they were getting prior to the Fairtrade agreement. While there is a difference, it's not significant, and Daley is thus concerned that the fair trade movement is being reshaped to increase farmers' wages by small amounts, rather than to transform poor communities through development.

Madsen Pirie from the Adam Smith Institute - another sceptic of the Fairtrade practice - shares Daley's concern, commenting to the BBC:

"[Fairtrade farmers] become dependent on us continuing to pay 'premium' prices for their goods, [making them] prisoners to our market."

This perspective therefore claims that while small-scale fair trade deals are beneficial to some degree, they aren't enough for Third World farmers to lift themselves out of poverty; they need bigger market developments to achieve that.

Others, however, argue otherwise. , howevEileen Maybin, a spokeswoman for the Fairtrade Foundation, said:

"Fairtrade focuses on ensuring that farmers in developing countries receive an agreed and stable price for the crops they grow, as well as an additional Fairtrade premium to invest in social projects or business development programmes. Typically, farmers' groups decide to use the premium on education, healthcare and clean water supplies, or the repair of roads and bridges, and to strengthen their businesses, improve the quality of their crop or convert to organic production."

She added that farmers and workers involved in Fairtrade always talk about how much they, their families and their communities benefit.

Justin Purser, the commodities manager for Trade Aid Importers in New Zealand, has also witnessed some of the big changes fair trade can make:

"It is very common for fair trade coffee co-operatives to seek to build infrastructure which will cut down on the amount of labour required to process their coffee, and will also enable them to improve their coffee quality and, thereby, the higher prices they can command in the market."

So, the debate of whether fair trade promotes dependency or self-sufficiency continues. However, one thing is certain: fair trade conditions are far more beneficial to Third World farmers than non-fair trade conditions. So, while bigger issues may still be at hand, Fairtrade is certainly a starting point to put an end to cheap production through exploitation. Moreover, buying Fairtrade is something everyone can personally do on a daily basis to help.

There are various ways to support the fair trade practice: you could always pick fair trade products when faced with a choice of fairtrade or non-fairtrade. Many stores, markets and coffee shops do, after all, stock products from both categories. However, why not shop specifically for fair trade products? Or better yet, if the store you normally shop at doesn't stock fair trade products, ask them if they plan to. If companies see enough consumer interest in the fair-trade practice, they may very well decide to switch over - and every little bit counts.