fair trade

fair trade, global movement to improve the lives of farmers and workers in developing countries by ensuring that they have access to export markets and are paid a fair price for their products. Those objectives are often achieved by establishing direct trading relationships between small-scale producers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and fair trade organizations (FTOs) in the United States and Europe, thereby eliminating intermediary buyers and sellers. A subsidiary goal of the movement in developed countries is to increase consumer awareness of unjust and unfair international trade practices.

There is no consensus regarding a starting date of the fair trade movement. However, an instrumental development was a visit in 1946 by the pioneering American businesswoman Edna Ruth Byler to a women’s sewing group run by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Puerto Rico. Byler began selling the group’s crafts to friends and neighbours in the United States. In 1962 her project was adopted by the MCC as the Overseas Needlework and Crafts Project. It was renamed Ten Thousand Villages in 1996.

In 1949 a nonprofit organization called SERRV (Sales Exchange for Refugee Rehabilitation and Vocations) was established in the United States by the Church of the Brethren to form trade relationships with poor communities in South America. The first formal fair trade shop in the United States, where goods from SERRV and other organizations were sold, was established in 1958.

Europe joined the movement during the late 1950s, when the Quaker-led Oxford Committee for Famine Relief—now Oxfam International—began selling arts and crafts made by Chinese refugees in its shops in the United Kingdom. In 1964 the organization introduced handicrafts and Christmas cards made in other developing countries.

Parallel developments took place in the Netherlands, led by the charitable Roman Catholic organization S.O.S. Wereldhandel, later renamed Fair Trade Original. In 1967 Fair Trade Original began purchasing products from producer groups in developing countries, initially importing wood carvings from the slums of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and later establishing subsidiaries in West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Belgium.

In 1968, developing countries adopted a new political agenda at the second session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in New Delhi, emphasizing the message “Trade not aid” and advocating the establishment of equitable trade relationships between developed and developing countries. Although the agenda adopted in the UNCTAD was never fully implemented at the national level, its message contributed to the spread of fair trade practices around the world, thanks in large part to citizen-led initiatives.

In 1969 the first World Shop opened its doors in the Dutch town of Breukelen, initially selling sugarcane and handicrafts imported by Fair Trade Original. In 1973 coffee was added to the fair trade product line, with the first imports coming from cooperatives in Guatemala. Over time a range of products including tea, cocoa, sugar, wine, nuts, and spices were introduced, paralleling a significant increase in the number of World Shops, or Fair Trade shops, around the world.

The 1980s witnessed the creation of the first fair trade labeling organizations, which eventually enabled fair trade products to reach broader audiences. The Max Havelaar label, created in the Netherlands in 1988, was named after a fictitious character who battled government corruption and the exploitation of local coffee farmers by Dutch colonialists in 19th-century Java. Similar organizations followed in other European countries and in North America, leading to the establishment of the worldwide Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) association in 1997. Labeling of fair trade products was instrumental in raising consumer awareness. It also allowed such products to be sold alongside non-fair trade counterparts in large supermarket chains, expanding their availability from fair trade shops to mass consumer markets.

In 1989 the International Federation of Alternative Trade (IFAT; later renamed World Fair Trade Organization) was born, bringing together 38 fair trade organizations under one roof. One year later, in 1990, the European Fair Trade Association (EFTA) was formally established by 11 fair trade import organizations in nine European countries. In 1998 the FLO, IFAT, NEWS (Network of European World Shops), and EFTA established an informal working group called FINE (an acronym of the names of the member organizations). FINE was dedicated to increasing worldwide awareness of the fair trade movement through active campaigning in political circles and organizing public events.

Since the mid-20th century the fair trade movement has changed the lives of thousands of workers in developing countries by providing them with access to European and North American markets. The movement created a global industry and continues to expand, with organizations at all levels involved.

Critics, however, have argued that the expansion of the fair trade movement has come with significant costs. Some have charged that the fair trade label has been used as a marketing tool to entice consumers in developed countries to pay higher prices for certain products whose sale does little to benefit producers in poor countries. They argue that the fair trade label, whose initial aim was to empower local producers by identifying fair trade businesses and products, has been diluted over time and is now being used merely as a guarantee against exploitation. Furthermore, corporate plantations and big businesses have emerged in poor countries to compete against local fair trade products to the detriment of workers. Despite its imperfections, however, the fair trade movement continues to provide opportunities to marginalized workers throughout the world.