Basically his view, true or false, is that this is little more than a marketing gimmick designed to get you to pay a higher price, most of which ends up in the pockets of the Supermarket chain and the pockets of the fair trade organizations and not in the hands of the farmers by appealing to your guilt at being rich (or at living in a rich country) and your sense of "fairness".
The price in the supermarket question - the fact is that there was a time in England when you cld only get Fair trade coffee in your local church or the Oxfam shop. And I did, of course. but then we had the idea that if we all wrote to the supermarkets and said " we shop here, we will shop elsewhere if we don't see Trade craft on the shelves", we suddenly found all the big retailers were selling Traidcraft. OK, they took a cut, but they could shift more boxes on a Monday morning than we could in a whole month in our local church. You now get Traidcraft in Starbucks! I don't think it started as a gimmick , and it does seem to have grass roots support in the 3rd world.
The real test is - do the co ops put up schools and clinics? has anyone ran a story to show that there is dissent at local level. Even the Grameen Bank has run into trouble over this, and now AI.
It seems that the good guys have to be good or get found out - and nobody has rumbled Traidcraft - as yet. the price of entry question has been addressed and registration fees for smaller growers has been reduced.
But, I guess we have to be vigilant.
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Date: 18/7/11 18:48 (UTC)The price in the supermarket question -
the fact is that there was a time in England when you cld only get Fair trade coffee in your local church or the Oxfam shop. And I did, of course. but then we had the idea that if we all wrote to the supermarkets and said " we shop here, we will shop elsewhere if we don't see Trade craft on the shelves", we suddenly found all the big retailers were selling Traidcraft. OK, they took a cut, but they could shift more boxes on a Monday morning than we could in a whole month in our local church. You now get Traidcraft in Starbucks! I don't think it started as a gimmick , and it does seem to have grass roots support in the 3rd world.
The real test is - do the co ops put up schools and clinics? has anyone ran a story to show that there is dissent at local level. Even the Grameen Bank has run into trouble over this, and now AI.
It seems that the good guys have to be good or get found out - and nobody has rumbled Traidcraft - as yet. the price of entry question has been addressed and registration fees for smaller growers has been reduced.
But, I guess we have to be vigilant.