Free Trade & Fair Trade

Fair trade is an organized social movement which promotes standards for international

labor , environmentalism , and social policy in areas related to production of fair trade

labeled and unlabeled goods . The movement focuses in particular on exports from

developing countries to developed countries . Fair trade 's strategic intent is to deliberately

work with marginalized producers and workers in to help them move from a

position of vulnerability to security and economic self-sufficiency

The set guidelines or in other words the basic properties that should be there for a p

positive trade could be summarized as follows

Environmental protection

Working Conditions

Gender equity

Capacity Building

Transparency and Accountability

Creating opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers

Payment of Fair Price

When considering coffee trade and its production . Farmers are usually subject to lower

market price and deals are way less then what the real standard rate should be and they

end up getting raw deal . West African coffee farmers are one of the biggest examples of

such a treatment where big multinational organization has bought up lands and since

most of the population in these area live below the poverty line they are then subject to

work on wages lower then normal which obviously is not a fair deal to them same has

been the case in few other regions notably and South America Multinational

corporations buying only coffee beans have developed this strategy where they have

invested a certain chunk in these third world countries by occupying the land though this

has brought employment but if one consider the whole scenario its just a triumph for all

the big fishes since they are able to limit the poor farmer for a minimal few

As mentioned earlier payment of fair price is the main block that sets in motion the

motives of the performer towards performing his task . A fair price in the regional or local

context is one that has been agreed through dialogue and participation It covers not only

the costs of production but enables production which is socially just and environmentally

sound . It provides fair pay to the producers and takes into account the principle of equal

pay for equal work by women and men . Fair traders ensure prompt payment to their

partners and , whenever possible , help producers help producers with access to pre-harves

harvest or pre-production financing

In 1992 , a sales value ratio of 80 handcrafts to 20 agricultural goods was the norm

in 2002 handcrafts amounted to 25 .4 of sales while commodity food lines were up at

69 .4 .[4] This increase intrade in demand of eatable specially tea and coffee brought up

the need of set rules and guidelines for fair international trade and eventually with which

was linked the issues of farmers to the occupation . Fair trade is seen as an

attempt to address these proported market failures by providing producers a stable price

for their crop , business support , access to premium Northern markets and better general

trading conditions . The basic aim behind this was...