Abstract
This paper uses
six articles to discuss not only the definition of fair trade, which is fairly
consistent, but also its purposes, advantages, and flaws. Moore (2004) talks about the different views
of southerners and northerners and really shows that he has an unbiased view
about fair trade. This helps the reader analyze
both sides of the issue and develop their own opinion about the fair trade
movement. Redfern and Snedker (2002)
outline the history of Fair Trade and also its evolution through the 40 years
it has been in progress. They also talk
about the different approaches you can take when analyzing fair trade and also
its future challenges. Renard (2003)
also talks about the challenges of fair trade but she specifically mentions the
issue of empowerment which is also mentioned in Moore’s article. Hira and Ferrie (2006) focus entirely on all
of the challenges and on how fair trade is really helping or making a
difference in businesses in different parts of the world.
Looking
Deeper Into the Core of
The
Fair Trade Movement
Fair trade has become more and more
recognized around the world in recent years probably because of the economic
crisis and also because of the increase in poverty levels around the globe. Fair trade can be defined as an Economic
partnership based on dialogue, transparency, and respect. It is also an organized social movement and
market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries to
make better trading conditions and promote sustainability (Moore, 2004) .
It betters the economy of developing countries and gives better jobs to
everyone including women. This has
become an extremely important subject because of the extensive use of resources
and also the increase in population size.
Population size can affect poverty levels because there aren’t enough
supplies to go around to everyone. Raising
awareness amongst consumers, businesses and policy-makers about how mainstream
international trade excludes the poor has long been a fundamental objective of Fair
Trade organizations (Redfern & Snedker, 2002) . This is why the
Fair Trade Movement has become much more popular because one of its purposes is
to alleviate poverty. Free trade could really help the world reach the 8
millennium development goals successfully without affecting the environment or
putting people, especially children, in hazardous jobs.
Fair trade has many different purposes
that can be very useful especially to those countries that do not have enough
supplies to keep everyone alive. For example, for the banana market it is not
an exaggeration to say that fair trade represents the last, best hope for
family farmers otherwise unable to survive in a liberalized banana market (Moberg, 2005) . Alleviating
poverty, empowering producers to set prices
within the framework of the true costs of labor time, promoting safe and
healthy working environments free of forced labor, creating development
opportunities for disadvantaged producers, especially women and indigenous
people, and protecting children from exploitation in the production process are
some of the main purposes for the creation of the fair trade movement (Moore, 2004) . Women in rural places or places with extreme
poverty have always had a disadvantage when it came to having jobs that didn’t
exploit them or that weren’t hazardous to them and fair trade has made this
change dramatically. About 76% of women
were engaged in non-agricultural fair trade production in 2008 (The Fair Trade Federation, 2012) . Not only that but approximately 7.5 million
individuals in 2008 directly benefited from Fair Trade Certified production. Children in places such as Nigeria have been
working in hazardous places also so the fair trade movement hopes to reduce the
number of children that engage in such jobs which was 284,000 in 2008 (The Fair Trade Federation, 2012) .
Although
the fair trade does try to promote positive action, there are always some
conflicts to every movement. Moore
(2004) mentions that some of these conflicts are that under certain conditions,
it seems, both free trade and protectionism work better than Fair Trade, and
direct donation is also claimed to be superior to Fair Trade. Not only this, but it is also difficult to
get consistent data for Fair Trade which becomes a barrier for further analysis
of trends (Moore, 2004) . Although this movement has become better
known it is still just beginning and it still has a long way to go to become
the number one choice of trade. One key
element in strengthening fair trade is a label of guarantee, which functions as
symbolic support, distinctive sign of quality of the product, basis of value
and a source of power for those who do the certifying (Renard, 2003) .
Other challenges that arise for fair trade are, defining what fair trade
really is, how to certify and how to improve awareness and availability. Businesspeople
are skeptical if somewhat responsive about fair trade not just because of
certification problems, but whether there is fundamentally any sizable market (Hira & Ferrie, 2006) . It is really difficult to understand the actual
concept of fair trade because the definition is mainly focused on what the
purpose of it is but it doesn’t explain exactly what it is and that’s what makes
it so complicated to certify.
Although
fair trade is very hard to define, it has been shown to help farmers in certain
ways. Fair trade certified coffee
farmers receive 10 cents social premium on top of the per-kilo price and 20
cents of social premium on top of the per-kilo price for organic coffee while farmers
on conventional farms receive 2 cents from the average $3 latte (The Fair Trade Federation, 2012) . This can really be
an issue especially in countries of extreme poverty where even a few cents can
make such a huge difference in their entire life. If approximately 2.7 billion people
in the world exist on less than $2 / day, there is obviously a very serious
problem occurring in the world that needs to be fixed. Is fair trade the answer
to this issue? I believe that if it does become more widespread, then it really
could make a difference because the members of the fair trade movement are
really focused on alleviating poverty and are really working towards this
purpose. Of course this always leads to the conflict of availability which
needs to increase so that it can have a bigger impact and become more than just
an idea and more of a good option for developing countries and the people in
it. The different members involved with fair trade follow specific criteria in
sourcing their products. Having a price
that covers the cost of production, a social premium to provide funding for
development project, a partial payment in advance to avoid small Producer
organizations falling into debt, contracts that allow long-term production Planning,
long-term trade relations that allow proper planning and sustainable production
practices, producers must be part of democratic cooperatives and sustainable
environmental practices are the most important criteria of fair trade
cooperatives and ATOs (Hira & Ferrie, 2006) .
Discussion
All in all, the fair trade movement is meant to better the conditions of
people in poor countries where any amount of money is good enough to aid in
their survival. Not only do they want to
alleviate poverty but they also want to promote sustainability. Even though this can be extremely helpful it
isn’t as easy as wanting to make a change. According to Renard (2003) there are a couple
of difficulties along the way, which have to do with figuring out a way to make
Fair Trade more available and also how to classify it and define it. These are the main limitations of this
specific movement and even today it is still an issue. If these two problems can be fixed then I
believe that a real difference can be made in these countries in need.
Further
research can be done to figure out a way to gather all the data necessary to
view the effects of this movement clearly and thoroughly. Attempting to quantify Fair Trade in terms of
market size and market segmentation is problematic because of the lack of an
overarching trade body. As Moore (2004)
states, it is difficult to get consistent data for Fair Trade which becomes a
barrier for further analysis of trends (Moore, 2004) .
If further research can be done to
figure out ways in which the movement of fair trade can be tracked to analyze
more thoroughly the data, then maybe fair trade could be defined more
specifically. This will help corporations
have a stronger hold and opinion about fair trade and there for might have more
reason to support it and make it more available. It is a chain reaction starting with better
data analysis and ending with a better definition and then becoming more
widespread. Overall fair trade works for
a good cause it just needs to overcome a few obstacles so that it can reach its
main goals.
By: L Almanza
Student of Biology Major at USF.
Works Cited:
Hira, A., & Ferrie, J. (2006).
Fair Trade: Three Key Challenges for Reaching the Mainstream. Journal of Business
Ethics, 107–118.
Moberg, M. (2005). Fair Trade and
Eastern caribbean Banana Farmers: Rhetoric and Reality in the
Anti-Globalization Movement. The Society for Applied Anthropology.
Moore, G. (2004). The Fair Trade movement:
parameters, issues and future research. Journal of business, 1-19.
Redfern, A., & Snedker, P. (2002). Creating
Market Opportunities for Small Enterprises:Experiences of the Fair Trade
Movement. Switzerland: International Labour Organization.
Renard, M. C. (2003). Fair trade: quality,
market and conventions. Journal of Rural Studies, 87–96.
The Fair Trade Federation. (2012). The
Fair Trade Federation. Retrieved from The Fair Trade Federation:
http://www.fairtradefederation.org/ht/d/sp/i/197/pid/197
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