Shoppers want to buy with clean conscience

from the Galveston Daily News

This article is a good primer on the basics of fair trade. Explaining what makes an item "Fair Trade Certified" - Kale

By Leigh Jones

Today’s consumers are toting their consciences with them on shopping trips, a trend that has encouraged the growth of the fair trade market.

Shoppers want to know that the products they buy aren’t produced in sweat shops and that the farmers get a fair price for their crops.

But with retail outlets thousands of miles from the coffee plantations and rice fields where their purchases originate, how can buyers be sure they’re shopping with a clean conscience?

What Is Fair Trade?

The fair trade philosophy ensures producers get a fair wage for their work and labor in healthy working conditions. It also emphasizes environmental sustainability and community development, with farmers and producers deciding democratically how to invest fair trade revenues.

The movement started in the late 1940s, when American and European churches founded alternative trade organizations to help refugees and other poverty-stricken communities around the world by selling their crafts, according to TransFair USA, the only U.S. certifier of fair trade products.

The socially responsible way to shop has risen in popularity again recently as consumers become more aware of the way their purchasing decisions affect producers in developing countries, where labor standards are lax and workers cannot rely on assistance from their governments.

In a conventional supply chain, products change hands about six times before they get to the consumer.

Because farmers are so far removed from the marketplace, they often have no idea that buyers are giving them far less than market value for their crops, said Jennifer Rudolph, TransFair spokeswoman.

After leaving the producer, fair trade products only go through the co-op and the distributor before arriving in stores.

Selling directly to the exporters, who cannot buy at below a set minimum price, helps farmers get more of a share in the profits their products generate, Rudolph said.

Certified

TransFair issues the “Fair Trade Certified” logo to producers who have passed an independent certification process according to international fair trade criteria. The organization is a member of Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International, which develops fair trade standards applied by 23 members in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Unlike its involvement with organic certification, which is established by standards set by the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. government has not participated in the fair trade certification process.

Coffee, tea and herbs, cocoa and chocolate, fresh fruit, sugar, rice, vanilla and flowers are the only products in the United States currently eligible for certification by TransFair.

Although the group wants to add more products to its certification list, it can only work in markets where every single part of the supply chain can be guaranteed, Rudolph said.

Handicrafts and clothing are difficult to certify because they are made from so many components, each of which must be verified as fairly traded in order for the final product to receive certification.

Establishing a fair price can also be difficult because every item is produced with a different process.

Link to full article. May expire in future.