Fair Trade questions... rarely asked

To me, it is clear: it has been put to work primarily to help producers in impoverished countries make a decent living out of their products. Customers in North countries buy that products regularly, such as coffee, chocolate, tea, etc. The difference is that this Alternative Commerce slashes middlemen and moderates profits for those who trade in it, allowing producers to keep a larger share of the final price.

According to the previous answer, the larger quantity of certified products we can sell, the larger number of people can reap the benefits of trading fairly. This imply that if large corporations like to source themselves from Fair Trade products or sell them, more producers will be receiving a fair wage.

This does not mean, of course, that merely sourcing or selling Fair Trade items makes a company "clean". It is our individual responsibility as customers to know who are we buying from, and avoid those companies who have a record of unfair behaviour.

I see a tendency towards "corporate Fair Trade" which I dislike, for example in Fair Trade flowers: they require powerful logistics to be delivered when still fresh (i.e., not easily available for low income companies), there is not a minimum price for producers (well, that happens to other products) and FLO product standard seems to just remember ILO and WHO requirements about hazardous agrochemicals.

Of course not. Poverty at large scale is caused by a number of factors: corrupt governments, unfair international commerce rules, wars ... But Fair Trade is a valuable tool to diminish poverty when people is able to work and produce something. In this situation Fair Trade effectively fights against poverty and has a positive impact on people.

Well, sometimes I tend to think so. On the one hand, I have buyed some processed foods which had less than a 20% of Fairly traded ingredients (I am thinking now on a nice pasta with quinoa distributed by Altromercato). That product has more than 80 % of its ingredients from conventional sources, let alone that manufacturing has been done in Italy. I must admit that I buy this pasta for its Fair Trade quinoa, despite my concerns for all the above

But on the other hand, FLO clearly establishes its policy for granting a Fairtrade certified label to composite foods; they are defined by FLO as manufactured or processed finished or end-consumer products that are composed of more than one ingredient of which at least one is not sourced from a Fairtrade-certified producer organization. This kind od foods must have at least 50% of their composition sourced from Fairtrade producers, which is fine.

Well, it depends on how you think about it. The classic idea of charity, understood as "giving something to the poor" is now somehow demoted; altough there are still large numbers of poor people, we don't see donations as a trustable way for their development in the long term.

In Fair Trade, the money is obtained by producers in exchange for a good product, built through their own effort. May be only the Premium money is given "outside" the agreed price and we may think of it as a form of charity ... or may be a "bonus" on top of producers' salary?

If you have had a look at the Fair Trade future page, you may be aware that Fair Trade products are also sold inside South countries with an affluent class, like Mexico or Brasil.

In November 2007 I was attending a Fair Trade stand at an Organic & Sustainable Living event and a girl approached us saying "I produce a fine olive oil in my worker-owned co-operative; that is Fair, isn't it? so you could be selling it here". We explained her that for the time being, Fair Trade is broadly understood as as a South-North commerce, so average European co-ops could not qualify for it.

I guess that in the U.S.A. the Co-op America label distinguishes worker-owned or otherwise socially oriented companies. I am not aware that in Europe we enjoy a similar seal. To me, that could be a kind of Fair Trade inside North countries.

I think so, altough they can be quite personal and based on "buy local" criteria. For example, I buy all my coffee from Fair Trade World Shops, but I don't think I ever buy olive oil from any other country rather than Spain.