Why care about Fair-trade?
When looking at different organisations to donate some of Freedom Cups profits to help and abolish slavery there were many options to choose from. The first and most obvious choice was Fair-trade however as we delved deeper into the benefits of Fair-trade we realised the many downfalls that were counteractive to developing nations.
What are these downfalls?
Fair-trade in an effort to keep their image of helping the small guys do not allow their members to grow their farms beyond a certain level and must stay as a family business. This stops the opportunity of growth beyond a certain point which means that those who are trying to escape poverty may never be able to under Fair-trade.
To become a fairtrade member it is not easy, there is more supply than demand therefor you must bring a new willing costomer to join according to the Institute of Public Affairs. The The Institute of Economic Affairs report also states ". The minimum charge for certification for the smallest group (fewer than 50 producers) applying for certification of their first product is approximately £1,570 in the first year followed by an annual recertification fee of around £940" that is almost $2500 Australian dollars in the first year and almost $1500 AUD for every year after that, ridiculous figures for a struggling cocoa farmer to caugh up.
A study in Finland that can be accessed here found that most of the profits that from the premium on Fair-trade coffee did not go to the growers. In fact just 12% of the profits went to grower.
This video explains some of these problems
So what do should you do?
Don't completely avoid Fair-trade as it does guarantee that its products are slavery free and it has helped farmers keep there farms alive. However when donating money we believe there are more proactive ways to abolish slavery and help with third world problems one such way is donating to Free the Slaves
fair trade is such a vital and important aspect to improve the lively hood of communities that rely on these commodities. in term of the global economy, fair-trade has to be taken in to consideration when it comes to fairness. the international monetary fund and the united nation should be an extreme factor to regulating fair-trade, as the lively hood of these communities rely on it, and not focus on short term lending.
ReplyDeleteProjectmotsu.
You are right fairtrade has incredible potential to improve communities and individual owners livelihoods whilst removing poor working conditions for the farmers. However when you say that it is up to the UN and international monetary fund's job to regulate fair-trade I disagree.
DeleteFairtrade are in the best position to fix the problems that are causing many coffee plantation owners to not align themselves with Fairtrade coffee. Fairtrade obviously cares about these people otherwise why would they start the charity?
Hopefully this article will help raise awareness to Fairtrade so that they can fix their problems without the need for regulation by a third party.