Fair Trade: The Difference Between the Label and Movement
Who Owns Fair Trade
The real disagreement, between TransFair[Fair Trade USA] and others in the movement, however is much more than symbolism. It is about divergent views of the mission, the underlying values of Fair Trade, and the strategies employed to fulfill that mission. At stake are the fundamental questions: who is Fair Trade meant to serve and how should it best do so?
– Published February 1, 2011 by Phyllis Robinson
Equal Exchange Comic Book
Beyond the Label
While Fair Trade raises it slightly, the price is not nearly high enough to sustain, much less develop, communities in the Global South. The process of Fair Trade commodities also encourages monoculture—it sucks farmers and rural economies into a single crop. It hitches fortunes of vast parts of the world to desires in the Global North. If you can afford it, you can throw a penny or two to the people who grow your brew or the beans for your chocolate bar. But it’s still the consumer desires, consumer charity, and consumer pity that govern the lives, and plantations, of lands far away, with the choices, aspirations, dignity, and demands of the Global South still counting for very little.
–Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Raj Patel
Beyond the Label via RajPatel Blog. Posted on 11/27/2009 in Stuffed & Starved