Fair Trade USA

Last updated
Fair Trade USA
Company type Non-profit organization
Industry Product certification
Founded1998;26 years ago (1998)
Headquarters Oakland, California, United States
Key people
 Paul Rice, President and CEO
Ron D. Cordes, Chairman of the Board
Number of employees
~130 (2019)
Website www.fairtradeusa.org

Fair Trade USA, formerly "TransFair USA", [1] is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that sets standards, certifies, and labels products that promote sustainable livelihoods for farmers and workers and protect the environment. [2]

Contents

About

Founded in 1998 by the Institute for Agricultural Trade Policy (IATP), [3] Fair Trade USA is an independent, nonprofit organization that sets standards, [4] certifies, and labels products that promote sustainable livelihoods for farmers and workers and protect the environment.

Growth in fair trade

Although coffee remains the most popular fair trade product, Fair Trade USA certifies a variety of product categories, including tea, cocoa, sugar, spices, honey, produce, grains, wine and spirits, flowers, apparel and home goods, and body care. [5] There are more than 12,000 individual Fair Trade Certified products available in North America, [6] and the market is growing rapidly. [7]

Campaigns

Comedian Jimmy Fallon kicked off Fair Trade Month by hosting ice cream makers Ben & Jerry on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon . The October 4, 2011, episode mentioned the March episode in which Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield introduced their new flavor featuring Fair Trade Certified ingredients, Late Night Snack. Introducing the ice cream flavor, which is made with Fair Trade Certified vanilla and cocoa, gave Ben and Jerry the opportunity to discuss Fair Trade and the company's goal to use entirely Fair Trade Certified ingredients by 2013. [8]

Green Mountain Coffee partnered with musical groups Michael Franti & Spearhead and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals [9] to broadcast live concerts promoting Fair Trade. Both concerts were streamed on the Green Mountain Coffee Facebook page. [10] Green Mountain Coffee was recognized in September 2011 as the world's largest purchaser of Fair Trade Certified coffee, having bought 26 million pounds during 2010. [11]

Also in 2011, pastry chef Malika Ameen of Top Chef: Just Desserts Season 1 joined celebrity dietician Ashley Koff to create three dishes using Fair Trade Certified ingredients for a live Ustream broadcast during Fair Trade Month. The episode was called "Every Meal Matters" and consisted of a live cooking demonstration using Fair Trade Certified honey, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, ground cardamom, bananas, mangos, pineapples, quinoa, natural cane sugar, coffee, chocolate, and brown sugar. [12]

Criticisms of Fair Trade

There have been very few attempts at Fair trade impact studies. Griffiths (2011) [13] argues that few of these attempts meet the normal standards for an impact study, such as comparing the before and after situation, having meaningful control groups, allowing for the fact that fair trade recruits farmers who are already better off, allowing for the fact that a fair trade cooperative receives aid from a dozen other organizations – Government Departments, Aid Agencies, donor countries, and NGOs, and allowing for the fact that fair trade may harm other farmers. Serious methodological problems arise in sampling, in comparing prices, and from the fact that the social projects of fair trade do not usually aim to produce economic benefits.

Fair trade supporters boast of 'the honeypot effect' – that cooperatives which become fair trade members then attract additional aid from other NGO charities, government and international donors as a result of their membership. [14] Typically there are now six to twelve other donors. Critics point out that this inevitably means that resources are being removed from other, poorer, farmers. It also makes it impossible to argue that any positive or negative changes in the living standards of farmers are due to Fairtrade rather than to one of the other donors.

Booth says that the selling techniques used by some sellers and some supporters of Fairtrade are bullying, misleading and unethical. [15] There are problems with the use of boycott campaigns and other pressure to force sellers to stock a product they think ethically suspect. Some people argue that these practices are justifiable: that strategic use of labeling may help embarrass (or encourage) major suppliers into changing their practices. They may make transparent corporate vulnerabilities that activists can exploit. Or they may encourage ordinary people to get involved with broader projects of social change. [16]

There are complaints that the standards are inappropriate and may harm producers, sometimes imposing months of additional work for little return. [17]

There have been claims that adherence to fair trade standards by producers has been poor and that enforcement of standards by Fairtrade is very weak, notably by Christian Jacquiau [18] and by Paola Ghillani, who spent four years as president of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations [18] There are many complaints of poor enforcement problems: labourers on fair trade farms in Peru are paid less than the minimum wage; [19] some non-Fairtrade coffee is sold as Fairtrade [20] 'the standards are not very strict in the case of seasonally hired labour in coffee production.' [21] 'some fair trade standards are not strictly enforced' [22] supermarkets avoid their responsibility. [23] In 2006, a Financial Times journalist found that ten out of ten mills visited had sold uncertified coffee to co-operatives as certified. It reported that "The FT was also handed evidence of at least one coffee association that received fair trade certification despite illegally growing some 20 per cent of its coffee in protected national forest land. [20] A lot of volunteers do unpaid work for firms, or market fair trade in schools, universities, local governments or parliament. Crane and Davies' [24] study shows that distributors in developed countries make 'considerable use of unpaid volunteer workers for routine tasks, many of whom seemed to be under the (false) impression that they were helping out a charity.' Other critics in the Fair trade debate claim that the volunteers cannot know what fair trade does achieve and what harm it does, because the information is concealed from them. [25]

Segments of the trade justice movement have also criticized fair trade in the past years for allegedly focusing too much on individual small producer groups while stopping short of advocating immediate trade policy changes that would have a larger impact on disadvantaged producers' lives. French author and RFI correspondent Jean-Pierre Boris championed this view in his 2005 book Commerce inéquitable. [26]

There have been largely political criticisms of fair trade, both from the left and the right. Some believe the fair trade system is not radical enough. French author Christian Jacquiau, in his book Les coulisses du commerce équitable, calls for stricter fair trade standards and criticizes the fair trade movement for working within the current system (i.e. partnerships with mass retailers, multinational corporations etc.) rather than establishing a new fairer, fully autonomous trading system. Jacquiau is also a staunch supporter of significantly higher fair trade prices in order to maximize the impact, as most producers only sell a portion of their crop under fair trade terms. [27] It has been argued that the approach of the fair trade system is too rooted in a Northern consumerist view of justice which Southern producers do not participate in setting. "A key issue is therefore to make explicit who possesses the power to define the terms of fair trade, that is who possesses the power to determine the need of an ethic in the first instance, and subsequently command a particular ethical vision as the truth." [28] Some of the criticisms of fair trade from the free market approach to economics appear to be linked to right wing political approaches, but this does not mean that their analysis in this particular case is unacceptable to mainstream economists.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fair trade</span> Sustainable and equitable trade

Fair trade is a term for an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The fair trade movement combines the payment of higher prices to exporters with improved social and environmental standards. The movement focuses in particular on commodities, or products that are typically exported from developing countries to developed countries but is also used in domestic markets, most notably for handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, wine, sugar, fruit, flowers and gold.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairtrade International</span> Group promoting a living income for farmers

Fairtrade International, or Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International E.V. is a product-oriented multistakeholder group aimed at promoting the lives of farmers and workers through trade. Fairtrade's work is guided by a global strategy focused on ensuring that all farmers earn a living income, and agricultural workers earn a living wage. Fairtrade works with farmers and workers of more than 300 commodities. The main products promoted under the Fairtrade label are coffee, cocoa, banana, flowers, tea, and sugar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Fairtrade Foundation</span> Charity promoting and licensing Fairtrade certification in the United Kingdom

The Fairtrade Foundation is a charity based in the United Kingdom that aims to help disadvantaged producers in developing countries by tackling injustice in conventional trade, in particular by promoting and licensing the Fairtrade Mark, a guarantee that products retailed in the UK have been produced in accordance with internationally agreed Fairtrade standards. The foundation is the British member of FLO International, which unites FLO-CERT, 25 National Fairtrade Organisations and 3 Producer Networks across Europe, Asia, Latin America, North America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Traidcraft was a UK-based Fairtrade organisation, established in 1979. Its trading arm, Traidcraft plc, which sold fairly traded products, went into administration in January 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rainforest Alliance</span> International sustainable agriculture organization

The Rainforest Alliance is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) with staff in more than 20 countries and operations in more than 70 countries. It was founded in 1987 by Daniel Katz, an American environmental activist, who serves as the chair of the board of directors. The NGO states that its mission is "to create a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities." Its work includes the provision of an environmental certification for sustainability in agriculture. In parallel to its certification program, the Rainforest Alliance develops and implements long-term conservation and community development programs in a number of critically important tropical landscapes where commodity production threatens ecosystem health and the well-being of rural communities.

FLOCERT is one of the world’s leading social auditing and verification bodies and the global certifier for Fairtrade. With a vision of combating poverty and securing sustainable livelihoods for farmers in developing countries, FLOCERT's focus lies on auditing global supply chains and guaranteeing compliance with Fairtrade Standards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Fairtrade Certification Mark</span> Certification mark

The 'International Fairtrede Certification Mark is an independent certification mark used in over 69 countries. It appears on products as an independent guarantee that a product has been produced according to Fairtrade political standards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairtrade Canada</span> National non-profit certification and public education organization

Fairtrade Canada, formerly TransFair Canada, is a national non-profit certification and public education organization promoting Fairtrade certified products in Canada to improve the livelihood of developing world farmers and workers. It is the Canadian member of FLO International, which unites 24 fair trade producer and certification initiatives across Europe, Asia, Latin America, North America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

The fair trade debate concerns the ethics and economic implications of fair trade, a term for an arrangement designed to help producers in developing countries achieve sustainable and equitable trade relationships. The benefits of fair trade for farmers and workers can vary considerably and the social transformation impacts also vary around the world. However the main concerns from critics is that fair trade may give an unfair advantage to some producers over others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UTZ Certified</span> Program for sustainable farming, now merged with the Rainforest Alliance

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Paul Rice is the Founder & CEO of Fair Trade USA, the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in North America. Since launching Fair Trade USA in 1998, Rice has brought Fair Trade into the mainstream and built a movement to expand its impact. He has challenged and collaborated with hundreds of companies to rework their global supply chains to obtain high-quality products that support community development and environmental protection.

Impact evaluation of fair trade systems, like cost-benefit analysis, start with the premise that any intervention in an economic system has various impacts throughout that system: some significant, many small; some costs, some benefits; some people benefit, others are harmed. Impact evaluations aim to identify costs and benefits throughout the system, then quantify them, so that people do not make unwarranted claims of impact and so that informed decisions can be made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fair trade coffee</span> Coffee certified as produced to fair trade standards

Fair trade coffee is coffee that is certified as having been produced to fair trade standards by fair trade organizations, which create trading partnerships that are based on dialogue, transparency and respect, with the goal of achieving greater equity in international trade. These partnerships contribute to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to coffee bean farmers. Fair trade organizations support producers and sustainable environmental farming practices and prohibit child labor or forced labor.

Direct trade is a form of sourcing practiced by certain coffee roasters, chocolate makers, tea sellers, gemologists and more who build direct relationships with the farmers, artisanal miners and processors who sell their products. There is no single set of direct trade standards, and specific trade practices vary as a reflection of business and ethical priorities of the roaster or maker. Generally speaking, however, direct trade practitioners view their model as one of mutually-beneficial and transparent trade relationships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fair trade certification</span> Product certification within the market-based movement fair trade

A fair trade certification is a product certification within the market-based movement of fair trade. The most widely used fair trade certification is FLO International's, the International Fairtrade Certification Mark, used in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Fair Trade Certified Mark is the North American equivalent of the International Fairtrade Certification Mark. As of January 2011, there were more than 1,000 companies certified by FLO International's certification and a further 1,000 or so certified by other ethical and fairtrade certification schemes around the world.

Sustainability standards and certifications are voluntary guidelines used by producers, manufacturers, traders, retailers, and service providers to demonstrate their commitment to good environmental, social, ethical, and food safety practices. There are over 400 such standards across the world.

Sustainability marketing myopia is a term used in sustainability marketing referring to a distortion stemming from the overlooking of socio-environmental attributes of a sustainable product or service at the expenses of customer benefits and values. Sustainability marketing is oriented towards the whole community, its social goals and the protection of the environment. The idea of sustainability marketing myopia is rooted into conventional marketing myopia theory, as well as green marketing myopia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fair trade cocoa</span> Cocoa harvested under a certified process

Fair trade cocoa is an agricultural product harvested from a cocoa tree using a certified process which is followed by cocoa farmers, buyers, and chocolate manufacturers, and is designed to create sustainable incomes for farmers and their families. Companies that use fair trade certified cocoa to create products can advertise that they are contributing to social, economic, and environmental sustainability in agriculture.

Fairtrade bananas was a marketing initiative which focused on increasing the price paid to small banana growers and the wages of agricultural workers. This is not a commercial brand, but a marketing strategy. Fair trade is based on higher prices paid by consumers that allow an equitable distribution of gains from trade over the chain partners.

Globalization of supply chains and pressure to lower production costs have negatively impacted environments and communities around the world, especially in developing nations where production of high demand goods is increasingly taking place. Since the 1990s, awareness of these negative impacts has grown, leading stakeholders to push companies to take responsibility and actively work to improve the sustainability of their supply chains. It has come to be understood that a company is only as sustainable as the start of its supply chain, bringing about the need for sustainable sourcing. Sustainable sourcing refers to the inclusion of social, environmental, and economic criteria in the sourcing process.

References

  1. ↑ Fair Trade USA (16 September 2010) TransFair USA Changes Name to Fair Trade USA Press release. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
  2. ↑ "Fair Trade Standards".
  3. ↑ "History". www.IATP.org. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  4. ↑ "Fair Trade Standards". Fair Trade Certified. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-03-18. Retrieved 2014-07-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. ↑ "Almanac" (PDF). fairtradeusa.org. 2012.
  7. ↑ Clifford, Catherine (July 8, 2014). "How Fair Trade Went From a Crazy Coffee Concept to a Global Sustainability Trend". Entrepreneur.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  8. ↑ Cavin, Cory (October 5, 2011). "Ben & Jerry Talk Fair Trade And Late Night Snack - Show Clips". Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
  9. ↑ MarketWatch.com Archived December 30, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ "Green Mountain Coffee Facebook page". Facebook.com. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Fair Trade USA Names Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. World's Largest Purchaser of Fair Trade Certified Coffee" (Press release). Fair Trade USA. September 22, 2011. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
  12. ↑ "Every Meal Matters: Fair Trade Recipes Prepared Live on USTREAM, October 19 at 4pm ET" (Press release). Fair Trade USA - Greenconduct.com. October 19, 2011. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
  13. ↑ Griffiths, P., 'Ethical objections to Fairtrade' Journal of Business Ethics July 2011(DOI) 10.1007/s10551-011-0972-0 www.springerlink.com Accessed at http://www.griffithsspeaker.com/Fairtrade/why_fair_trade_isn.htm
  14. ↑ e.g. Utting, K. (2009). Assessing the impact of Fair Trade Coffee: Towards an Integrative Framework. Journal of Business Ethics , 86:127-149. (p. 141). ; Murray, D., Raynolds, L., & Taylor, P. (2003). One cup at a time: Poverty alleviation and Fair Trade coffee in Latin America. Colorado State University; Luetchford P (2006). Brokering Fairtrade: relations between coffee producers and Alternative Trade Organizations - a view from Costa Rica' in D. Lewis and D. Mosse (eds), Development Brokers and Translators: the Ethnography of Aid and Agencies, Kumarian Press, Bloomfield; CT Ronchi, L (2002a). The Impact of Fairtrade on Producers and their Organisations. A Case Study with COOCAFE in Costa Rica; Valkila, J. (2009). Fair Trade organic coffee production in Nicaragua - Sustainable development or a poverty trap? Ecological Economics , 68 p. 3024
  15. ↑ Booth, Philip "Don't bully the faithful into buying Fairtrade", The Catholic Herald, 20 February 2009; Booth, P. and L. Whetstone (2007) 'Half a Cheer for Fair Trade', Economic Affairs, 27, 2, 29–36; Booth, P. (2008). The Economics of Fairtrade: a Christian perspective. London: Institute of Economic Affairs http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=book&ID=437 Archived 2009-09-06 at the Wayback Machine ;
  16. ↑ Julie Guthman (2007). "The Polanyian Way? Voluntary Food Labels as Neoliberal Governance". Antipode. 39 (3): 456–478. Bibcode:2007Antip..39..456G. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2007.00535.x.
  17. ↑ Utting-Chamorro, K. (2005). Does Fairtrade make a difference? The case of small coffee producers in Nicaragua. Development in Practice, , 15(3,4).; Moberg M (2005). "Fairtrade and Eastern Caribbean Banana Farmers: Rhetoric and Reality in the Anti-Globalization Movement." Human Organization 64:4-16, Cited in Nelson and Pound (2009) p 10.; Valkila, J.: 2009, 'Fair Trade organic coffee production in Nicaragua - Sustainable development or a poverty trap?' Ecological Economics, 68, (p. 3023) Fraser (2009) cited in Griffiths, P. (2012), "Ethical Objections to Fairtrade", Journal of Business Ethics (2012) 105:357–373 DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0972-0 http://www.griffithsspeaker.com/Fairtrade/why_fair_trade_isn.htm, Accessed 2 February 2012
  18. 1 2 Hamel, I.: 2006, 'Fairtrade Firm Accused of Foul Play', Swiss Info http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/Fair_trade_firm_accused_of_foul_play.html?cid=5351232 Archived 2013-12-14 at the Wayback Machine 23/12/2009.
  19. ↑ Weitzman, H. (2006, August 9). 'Fair' coffee workers paid below minimum wage. Financial Times;Weitzman, H. (2006, September 9). "Ethical-coffee' workers paid below legal minimum". Financial Times.
  20. 1 2 Weitzman, H. (September 8, 2006). "The bitter cost of 'fair trade' coffee" . Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2022-12-11.
  21. ↑ Valkila, J.: 2009, 'Fair Trade organic coffee production in Nicaragua - Sustainable development or a poverty trap?' Ecological Economics, 68, 3018-3025.
  22. ↑ Reed, D.: 2009, 'What do Corporations have to do with Fair Trade? Positive and normative analysis from a value chain perspective', Journal of Business Ethics, 86, 3-26. p. 12
  23. ↑ Moore, G., Gibbon, J., & Slack, R.: 2006, 'The mainstreaming of Fair Trade: a macromarketing perspective', Journal of Strategic Marketing, 14, 329-352.
  24. ↑ Crane, A., & Davies, I. A. (2003). Ethical Decision Making in Fair Trade Companies. Journal of Business Ethics , 45: 79–92.
  25. ↑ Griffiths, P. (2012), "Ethical Objections to Fairtrade", Journal of Business Ethics (2012) 105:357–373 DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0972-0 http://www.griffithsspeaker.com/Fairtrade/why_fair_trade_isn.htm, Accessed 2 February 2012
  26. ↑ Boris, Jean-Pierre. (2005). Commerce inéquitable. Hachette Littératures. Paris.
  27. ↑ Jacquiau, Christian. (2006). Les Coulisses du Commerce Équitable. Éditions Mille et Une Nuits. Paris.
  28. ↑ Catherine S. Dolan (2008), Research in Economic Anthropology, "Arbitrating risk through moral values: the case of Kenyan fairtrade", Volume 28, Pages 271-296
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