Advantages And Disadvantages Of Fair Trade Or Not To Fair Trade

Fair Trade or Not to Fair Trade: Issues with the system The dictionary defines fair-trade as trade in which fair prices are paid to producers in developing countries. We tend to think of this as a social movement with the goal to aid developing countries to attain sustainability and improvement of trading conditions. Of all the labels plastered on your food packaging these days, Fair Trade is the only one that has a substantial influence, more so in the UK but has gained rapid popularity in the US markets. The World Fair Trade Organization states, “The organization trades with concern for the social, economic and environmental well-being of marginalized small producers and does not maximize profit at their expense.” The idea behind fair trade is that workers lives have a value and we, as consumers,

For example, there are clouded definitions of what qualifies as fair trade. Chris Woodford states in his article Fair Trade, “You can buy a T-shirt made from fair-trade cotton that could, in theory, have been made into a finished article in a sweatshop. There 's nothing to stop the manufacturer advertising this as an ethical shirt and branding it with a fair-trade logo.” It is incredibly hard to consistently monitor each and every farm, manufacture, and procedure implemented in the product to insure that practices meet the standard of the fair trade certification. The FLO(Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International) and other organizations like it try to avoid child labor and sweatshop practices but these things slip through the cracks when numerous farmers in a community of producers cannot be closely monitored. False labels on products, not paying a fair price or any wages of laborers, and kickbacks are major issues for defining quality. All of this makes it impossible to warrant the label that Fair Trade is supposed to stand for. There just isn 't any incentive to control the