So, I assume from this article that if I keep away from Starbucks and Costa Coffee I might, in fact, behelping someone out there to have a Fair Deal.

Employers in developing countries will never be able to afford to pay workers what we in the West consider to be a 'living wage', but then the cost of living is so much lower where they live.

Like large businesses here, they are only really interested in amount produced as cheaply as possible, efficiency, and making a profit. It always was so, and I cannot see it changing rapidly now.

Freelander   11 April 2008

Actually, in conjunction with Conservation International, Starbucks developed the C.A.F.E. Practices mentioned among the report's ethical alternatives. I even heard that the premium Starbucks pays to its suppliers is higher than the "Fairtrade" guaranteed minimum, so buying Starbucks non-Fairtrade is even better for the coffee supplier than buying Starbucks Fairtrade! As John observed before, "If we really want to ensure the poor-nation farmer profits from our purchases, we might do better to avoid investing in the Fairtrade organisation and instead spend a little bit more to pay a fair price for a higher quality product."

AMJ   12 April 2008

It was interesting to read this article. However, I believe that aspects of global trade (trade subsidies and tariffs, exploitation of small suppliers by large corporate players, exploitation of the poor workers and children who are not paid a fair proportion of the cost of production and cannot live from their wages etc) lead to global trade being the context of some of the biggest injustices of the modern world.

Because of this, the reason I buy fairtrade items is not because my purchases will end poverty nor because I want to pay an artificially high price to the producer, it is because I want to do what I can to avoid participating in unethical employment and supply chain practices. Despite the weaknesses mentioned above, and even if a lot of the extra cost doesn't go the the producer but to the Fairtrade Foundation, I am prepared to pay to have them do the work of verification for me and to support the work the Fairtrade brand has done to raise awareness of trade injustices.

Some interesting thoughts on coffee growing as part of a way out of poverty http://www.cafeafrica.org

Tim A   15 April 2008

Is there a difference between the Fairtrade of big suppliers, such as Tesco, or M&S and the Fairtrade products I get through Oxfam or Traidcraft? I see the former as just jumping on a bandwagon in the hope of keeping market share. The latter, I hope, can do much more as (I think) they are much closer to the supplier.
Fairtrade has caught on because, like 'Organic' it seems to be doing something about a problem (real or perceived)

Tim Birkinshaw   15 April 2008

I am most concerned about the issue of child labour in the production of chocolate. Morally this is a problem we in the West must help resolve because we caused it through recent World Bank and IMF policies in West Africa.

My pastor promotes Green & Blacks as they go beyond the basic fairtrade guarantees of a minimum income and no child labour. They work with suppliers to go organic and to improve the quality of their crop. Unlike a lot of over-priced fairtrade goods, it actually tastes good too.

Stop The Traffik's website has a 'Good Chocolate Guide' listing what chocolate is guaranteed to be 'Traffik Free'. See http://www.stopthetraffik.org/chocolatecampaign/guide.aspx.

However, simply abstaining from chocolate harvested by children may mean the children end up in worse forms of employment, such as prostitution. Alternative income-generating opportunities will need to be provided for the parents if the root cause of poverty is to be tackled. This is an area for governments to address, not consumers. So, everyone concerned needs to write to their MP and MEP, not just buy the right brands of chocolate and coffee.

Rebecca K   15 April 2008

I am a coffee trader, working closely with smallholder coffee producers accross Africa. We are focused on helping producers get a good price and improve their quality. It is true that there are many failings of Fair Trade, though I think that we are better with the label than without it. But we need to recognise it for what it is - a Brand. The main concern with Fair Trade is the Oxfam marketing that promotes it as the only Fair way to buy coffee - which is certainly not the case. For those living in the UK, I would recommend Taylors of Harrogate, Matthew Algie, Union Hand Roasted (used to be called Union Coffee Roasters), Starbucks or Ethical addictions (www.eacoffee.co.uk). All these people show a firm commitment to helping smallholder producers.

Phil Schluter   15 April 2008

Adam Smith Institute= Free market ideology

It is ironic that because of free market ideology imposed on poor countries in the developing world in the 1980s as the result of structural adjustment policies, these countries are considerably more vulnerable now to rising food prices (as their agricultural support institutions have been dismantled, and food stocks reduced). This is not ironic, but tragic.

It is a sad day when Christians prefer an ideology that favours the powerful rather than the powerless.
Debate is important, but please Jubilee Centre, represent the powerless!

Richard Clarke   27 April 2008

I was surprised that the Jubilee Centre seem to be listening harder to the Adam Smith Institute than people trying to help the poor. Unsurprisingly the Institute assume that the local farmers must develop, by 'mechanisation and diversification'. Why?? They just want to earn a living to feed their family and live a decent life. Is this such a crime? Well it is in western society where we MUST make more and more profit.

Back to the Jubilee Centre's article in Engage, they imply only 15% of the mark up in price goes to the producer. well that's 15% more than non-Fairtrade goods, so that seems to me to be a good reason for staying with Fairtrade!

Eric Baldwin   28 April 2008

The way in which Fairtrade is sometimes promoted as being the only scheme worthy of consideration in the “fair trade family” is difficult to defend. As the House of Commons International Development Committee has warned “It is important that fair trade organisations do not assume they have a monopoly on [ethical sourcing].” However, the answer is for the alternatives to promote their brand as effectively as Fairtrade and for Fairtrade’s claims (and those of the alternatives) to be subjected to more rigorous analysis.

The problem arises in part because the terms “Fairtrade” and “fair trade” are so loosely used. Assumptions are also made that companies using the Fairtrade Mark (including Nestlé, Sainsbury’s, and Tesco) necessarily agree with every position adopted by the Fairtrade Foundation or that the entire fair trade movement subscribes to all the views of the Trade Justice Movement.

This is not the case. The Trade Justice Movement is at one end of a wide range of views on the matter. Some in the fair trade movement are against free trade and see fair trade as the first step in taming the free market. Others, like me, are strong advocates of free trade and view Fairtrade, Rainforest, Utz Certified, etc. as brands with certain attributes which are important to many people. The fact that large corporations such as Nestlé were able to licence fair trade products was a victory for the latter, but there is little doubt that this debate will continue.

It is very surprising that the Adam Smith Institute, of all organisations, should complain that “Fairtrade fortnight is a marketing exercise intended to maintain the Fairtrade mark’s predominance.” In a free market (which the ASI advocates), that is the right way for a business to protect and increase the value of its brand – which is what the Fairtrade mark is.

Businesses I am involved in have been certified by three of the five alternative coffee certification schemes mentioned (Café Practices, Rainforest Alliance, and Utz Certified) and I am well aware of the other two (Cup of Excellence and 4C). All have their merits and all have a fair amount in common. Indeed, in one country, the same person does the certification for Fairtrade, Café Practices and Utz Certified.

What the ASI report failed to acknowledge is that most of these alternatives were set up after the advent of the Fairtrade mark and were a direct or indirect response to it. If these other organisations are more effective than Fairtrade, they will succeed and Fairtrade will fade away. That is the market. My personal view is that Fairtrade is a strong and well-managed brand with values that millions of people in the UK share. It will therefore continue to grow, provided both that it remains market-oriented and that customers have clear evidence that it benefits producers and their communities.

The report was fair in highlighting that the crash in coffee prices that gave rise to the Fairtrade Foundation was the inevitable result of government intervention and that coffee prices have since recovered somewhat – although the weakness of the dollar has offset much of the gain in the dollar price of coffee.

However Fairtrade is not simply about price. It is also involves credit, technical support and long-term relationships. It will be interesting to see what happens to Fairtrade in the coming years as I believe that most primary agricultural prices will rise sharply. If Fairtrade fades away, it will indicate that the other elements of the brand (in particular long-term relationships) were of little significance to one or both sides compared with price.

Like any brand which makes claims about itself, Fairtrade needs to be subject to closer scrutiny. However the Adam Smith Institute’s conclusion that Fairtrade is ‘unfair’ is not borne out by the evidence cited on any reasonable definition of the word.

Jeremy Lefroy is Director of African Speciality Products Ltd. He is also a founder and director of Equity for Africa (www.equityforafrica.org), which Jubilee Centre founder Dr Michael Schluter was also closely involved in establishing.

Jeremy Lefroy, Director of African Speciality Products Ltd   1 May 2008

I work for the Fairtrade Foundation. I was saddened to read John Hayward's initial post here. We do need to be aware what the real agenda of the Adam Smith Institute is on these issues, and judge the accuracy of their report accordingly.

Many of the so-called 'facts' cited by the Adam Smith Institute are quite simply untrue and misleading. I agree with Jeremy Lefroy's that Fairtrade, like any issue, should be open to scrutiny as well as up for debate. And that Fairtrade has to prove itself by its impacts, not be promoted blindly. By the same token, as Christians, we should not just swallow unquestioningly the agenda of a right-wing think tank.

If you were to go into any supermarket today, you would find Fairtrade products competitively priced compared with their nearest equivalents. Some are the same price, some slightly more, and others are even cheaper. Arguments based on some fictional notion of the 'consumer mark up' are therefore very confusing. There is simply no evidence for what they say - it's pure scaremongering. How would this argument work, for example in Sainsbury's who switched all their bananas to Fairtrade without changing the prices to their customers at all? What 'premium' are they talking about? How does it work when a bar of Divine Chocolate is 20p cheaper than, say, Lindt? Quite simply that's not how Fairtrade works, nor how it could ever work. The price and Fairtrade premium that goes back to the producer is agreed and negotiated at the point of sale from the farmers' group to the next trader. That is where it is paid, and the producer organisations get 100% of what international Fairtrade standards lay out. At the consumer end, fixing prices is, as we have seen recently with all the investigations by the Office of Fair Trading, deemed illegal in this country. Supermarkets are not allowed to do it amongst themselves, nor are we or any other organisation allowed to intervene in retail pricing decisions. For us, prices are displayed on shelf or packet, and we make our choices. And even if you do pay a little more for, say Cafedirect, than Lavazza coffee, I believe you've still got excellent value because you have not only ensured a fair price for the growers, you have helped them to build up an investment fund for improving their farming, their local communities or for diversification projects, and you have supported a company that is additionally reinvesting from its own profits, and that uniquely includes coffee, tea and cocoa growers amongst its own Board of Directors. That is a different business model. That's also the difference between a Traidcraft, Divine, Liberation, Cafedirect, People Tree or any product from a fair trade organisation (see www.ifat.org for list of these) and a supermarket own label product, where the Fairtrade prices, premiums, long term contracts all still apply, but growers do not necessarily have a share in profits or a say in governance of the brand.

Another myth perpetrated by Adam Smith Institute is that fair trade makes other farmers poorer. Fairtrade growers were incredulous when we shared this thesis with them. They are using their premiums from Fairtrade to build schools and clinics, improve roads, provide agricultural advice and market information, offer university scholarships, develop eco-tourism, start environmental protection programmes, tree nurseries, electrify villages and help them get running water. There is simply no evidence whatsoever that Fairtrade is doing anything than moving communities one step in the right direction. We would love to be able to expand to include millions more farmers, workers and their families in the scheme - to achieve that, we must build demand for Fairtrade products and bring more companies on board. That's why the Fairtrade Foundation works tirelessly to promote the FAIRTRADE Mark, so that the public recognises the label when they see it, and understands what it stands for, and wants to be part of the movement.

Fairtade is not inherently opposed to free trade, it is simply working to make trade more equitable for poor communities by matching supply and demand for ethical products in the marketplace. We know Fairtrade isn't the only way to tackle trade injustice and inequity. We agree with the case for wider trade reform - both removing Northern barriers and ending trade distorting export subsidies - I've seen for myself the terrible damage these have had for cotton farmers in West Africa. However we also believe in allowing developing countries the policy space to be able to choose their trade policies - nurture their own infant industries, protect markets where they believe this is needed for food security or protection of poor community interests, or open up markets where they believe this will benefit their poorest people. Fairtrade, by offering people a simple entry point into thinking about trade, can act as a spotlight to these wider issues, encouraging people to think beyond what they can do with their shopping basket to what they can do in political terms.

The cynical and misleading arguments by Adam Smith Institute do no favours for poor people. And they risk doing great harm to the growing millions of farmers and workers who, through Fairtrade, for the first time have earned new resources to start implementing their plans to improve their future. Christians do not see trade as merely an end in itself. Trade must have a greater vision than this - it must lead to the sustainable development and self-fulfilment of ordinary people and communities, particularly those currently most disadvantaged or marginalised by world markets. That's why the churches and inter-faith networks have been at the forefront of the Fairtrade movement. There are other ethical labels, but the Fairtrade label is truly a product of a grassroots social movement for change, and we should be proud of it, whilst of course always striving for even better models, and even deeper impacts - not just for those producers already in the Fairtrade system, but the millions we have still to reach.

For our full response to the Adam Smith Institute and lots of other information, check out www.fairtrade.org.uk.

Barbara Crowther

Barbara Crowther   10 May 2008

I know of several other schemes:
naturalclothing.co.uk
www.peopletree.co.uk
www.fairdealtrading.com
Also the Soil Association publishes a list of organic textile and garment producers, some of which are also \'fairtrade\' and the publication \'Ethical Consumer\' frequently advertises various \'fairtrade\' producers.
As regards microfinance schemes, you might add Shared Interest to your list, www.shared-interest.com
I hope these suggestions will be of some interest.

Anne Osborough   16 May 2008