Fairtrade focuses on supporting farming and working communities in the developing world, giving them more control over their lives while protecting the environment in which they live and work. It’s all about giving the people who produce the things we buy a fair price for their work. When a consumer buys something with a Fairtrade logo on it, a portion of the money goes towards helping the community from which it originated. In order to get a Fairtrade tag, companies must pay farmers higher than the market price for their products. Thus farmers would have extra money to invest in services such as education for their children and other social needs. Other examples of the benefits include buying bicycles to help workers travel to work or new wells to provide water. The foundation also ensures that all farms and factories from which these products come, have fair working conditions where workers are not exploited. Fairtrade products include, fruits (bananas, mangoes, pineapples, grapefruit), chocolate, tea, coffee, sugar, bean sprouts, honey, and peanuts.
However, there is much criticism towards the Fairtrade organization. People argue that the company might just be a trap for farmers that makes them dependent on the consumers that pay premium prices for their goods. It is noted that thousands of people in India and China are able to escape poverty, but this is done through real market developments, not small scale fair trade deals. They no longer are impoverished because they sold their goods on the open global market. Other concerns are that Fairtrade is just increasing farmers' wages by relatively small amounts rather than actually transforming poor communities through development, modernization, and industrialization. Regardless of these doubts, it is still clear that Fairtrade has made a difference in the lives of many workers and promotes self-sufficiency. By the end of 2011, the total number of small-scale farmers in the Fairtrade system was over 1 million with a 26% increase in sales revenues on Fairtrade terms. Fairtrade also encourages and utilizes practices that are environmentally sustainable. For example, producers follow a standard for not using chemicals and avoiding GMOs. Thus, while it is evident that Fairtrade is effective, it also has its drawbacks.
More concerns and information on Fairtrade: http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_problem_with_fair_trade_coffee
