We all want to live in an equitable world where everyone has the same opportunities to achieve happiness and freedom. But unfortunately, many governments fail to protect their citizens, allowing big corporations to set up shop without proper guidelines to ensure fair wages, benefits, and basic human rights.
The practice of fair trade works to help communities being taken advantage of by corporate greed. It aims to fight for fair wages, humane labour conditions, and environmental sustainability. Some of the industries most affected by unfair labour practices are coffee, tea, chocolate, cut flowers, fruit, jewelry, and apparel.
Garstang fairtrade town
There are many organizations fighting for fair trade practices around the world, but mostly in Latin America, Asia, and Africa:
â?¢ Equal Exchange: Certifies chocolate, tea, almonds, pecans, cranberries, and sugar
â?¢ Fair Trade Federation: Covers almost any imaginable product, including food, flowers, jewelry, clothing, and more
â?¢ TransFairUSA: Certifies coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, fruit, rice, flowers, and wine
â?¢ VeriFlora: Certifies cut flowers that are also sustainably grown
â?¢ World Fair Trade Organization: Certifies a very wide range of products, including clothing, food, beverages, jewelry, and so on
Unfortunately, not all is crystal clear in the world of fair trade. Fair Trade Certified coffee in particular has been attacked by some who suggest that coffeeâ??s low price is a result of overproduction and not unfair labour practices. They claim that by focusing on fair trade rather than finding other crops for farmers to grow, fair trade organizations are perpetuating a broken system. Itâ??s hard to say whether these problems are true. Most still believe that purchasing fair trade at least means their personal dollars are going to support ethical companies. Weâ??ll leave it to you to decide for yourself.
Want one source for all of your Fair Trade goods? Check out the Fair Trade Online Store that sells coffee, chocolate, tea, food, clothing and accessories, jewelry, and more, all from various fair trade organizations. And for more information on fair trade labels, go to the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International site.
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Hmm, when your saying “many governments fail to protect their citizens” I’m hearing “many governments don’t run protection rackets over their citizens”!
Hi- as a retailer of ethically sourced products the biggest problem I have with Fair Trade is that it seems to apply only to commodity products- cotton/ coffee/ bananas etc that are produced in huge quantities; we sell home furnishings/ gifts produced on a much smaller scale and the ‘Fair Trade’ stamp is mostly inaccessible to to us and our suppliers. Therefore we try to score our suppliers according to their adoption of ‘fair trade’ principles such as fair pay for the workers, investment in community support projects etc. We also stress these factors in the promotion of the goods to allow consumers to make their own choice…it is a minefield however, and I would love to see a more accessible accreditation for suppliers the world over.