FAIR TRADE:

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• FAIR TRADE
• IS THERE SUCH A THING?
• Paul Chandler
• Chief Executive, Traidcraft

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Fair trade ascendant

• Rapid growth in availability and turnover
• Involvement of mainstream companies
• 80 consumer recognition

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About Traidcraft

• Estd 1979
• Christian response to poverty
• UKs leading FT organisation
• Trading company
• Development charity

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Fair Trade under attack

• Economists it distorts markets and harms long
  term interests of poor
• Journalists does it really deliver? Can you
  have Tescos fair trade?
• Anti-corporate campaigners and environmentalists
  all trade is exploitative and harmful to the
  planet

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Is all trade exploitative?

• Easy to target big corporations
• Profit need not be a zero sum game
• Investment, market access, skills transfer

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The need for trade justice

• Unfair rules, subsidies etc skew the market
• Poor countries kept out of added value processes
  in vulnerable commodities

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The benefit of Fair Trade

• Can make an immediate difference in an unfair
  market
• Bypasses governments
• Builds producer capacity to sustain livelihoods

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Does Fair Trade deliver?

• Not perfect nothing is!
• Over-enthusiastic claims FT solves all the
  worlds ills
• Misunderstood myths

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Does Fair Trade deliver?

• Cutting out the middleman
• Its all about fair price
• All the extra price goes to producers
• All FT producers are well-off

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Fairtrade standards

• Minimum price
• Additional premium
• Advance payments
• Working conditions
• Worker empowerment
• Environmental considerations

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The reality of Fair Trade

• Malawian basket weavers
• Bangladeshi jute craftswomen
• Indian FT and organic cotton farmers

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The reality of Fair Trade

• Capacity building
• Often supplementary income
• Long-term process
• Relationships
• Development model

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Impact of big companies

• A more limited form of Fair Trade
• Brand marketing driven
• Competing ethical labels
• Producers need the volumes

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Does Fair Trade distort markets?

• Yes thats the whole point!
• Limitations of the free market paradigm
• Does FT encourage over-supply in practice?

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Fair Trade and the environment

• Common concerns
• Reduce food miles
• Promote local farmers in UK
• Developing world growth increases carbon
  emissions

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Is Fair Trade really fair?

• Doesnt do everything
• Doesnt reach everyone in need
• It is biased to the poor
• Pro-poor, development trade

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The future of Fair Trade

• Should all trade be Fair Trade?
• Empowers ethical consumers - moral choice and
  making views known
• Changing business and policy agendas

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www.traidcraft.co.uk