When people discuss the object fair trade they are often focused on price and the fair monetary compensation for the work of small-scale producers. In this blog, I will illustrate that fair trade is more than a fair price.
In my first blog ‘Fair trade is unique’ I wrote about a premium for development, which is paid directly to producer groups by importers of Fair Trade Certified products. This additional payment makes it possible for producer cooperatives to invest in education, infrastructure, healthcare…
For example: ‘The Kuapa Kokoo’, a cooperative of cocoa farmers in Ghana spent their Fair Trade Social Premiums on the building of clean water wells, mobile medical clinics and on the construction of several schools in their community.
My opinion on the use of the Fair Trade Label as a PR-tool by multinationals is that there are no negative consequences for the Third World countries as long as the multinational is also willing to pay an additional amount of money to improve global health care. We should not forget that fair trade aims to create a better world for small-scale producers and not for multinationals!
Lynn Decuypere
After reading Cédric his first blog, and your blog I think it’s time for a little summary. I guess we can conclude that companies are using the fair trade mark as a PR-tool. But we also agreed that this is not a bad thing. There are no negative consequences for the producers in the Third World. So the more companies using fair trade, the better. That is why I’m going to tell something more in my next blog about the way fair trade can be stimulated.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenStefanie De Lille