Networking between Fair Trade Organisations is crucial to their success. All over the world, networks have been established. The aim of FINE is to enable these networks and their members to cooperate on important areas of work, such as advocacy and campaigning, standards and monitoring of Fair Trade.
The Fair Trade movement came to being to raise awareness on trade injustices and imbalances of power in the conventional trade structures, and to advocate changes in policies to favour equitable trade. Sale points of Fair Trade products became one of the effective methods of campaigning. It was the Fair Trade shops that started including producer stories in product packaging to raise awareness on Fair Trade. The first European World Shops conference took place in This conference set the beginning of close cooperation between volunteers working in World Shops from all over Europe.
In , NEWS! This initiative has been taken up by IFAT, which brought it to a worldwide level. In the course of the years, the Fair Trade movement has become more professional in its awareness-raising and advocacy work. It produces well-researched documents, attractive campaign materials and public events. It has also benefited from the establishment of European structures that help to harmonize and centralise its campaigning and advocacy work.
Fair Trade and Fair Trade Organisations have been recognised repeatedly by European Institutions as well as national and regional governments for its contribution to poverty reduction, sustainable development and consumer awareness-raising.
The European Parliament passed several resolutions on Fair Trade in , and and many European ministers and prime ministers have publicly endorsed Fair Trade. Ever more public institutions are serving Fair Trade products and local authorities include fair and sustainable criteria in their public tenders.
Thousands of towns, universities and churches have applied for Fair Trade status, committing to promote Fair Trade and to contribute to overcoming poverty and exclusion.
Increasingly, representatives from developing countries promote Fair Trade because it enables small and marginalized producers in their countries to live and work in dignity.
Fair Trade is increasingly on the agenda of policy makers throughout the world. In the first decades, Fair Trade products were sold mainly by Fair Trade Enterprises that had Fair Trade as the central ethos guiding their activities. In the seventies and eighties, Fair Trade products were sold to consumers mainly in world shops or Fair Trade shops. In the second half of the s, a new way of reaching the broad public was developed. The past eight years have seen the rise of entire towns committed to raise awareness of Fair Trade, beginning with Media, Pennsylvania in to Healdsburg as the 24th town in Sept There are now currently 32 Fair Trade Towns in the U.
The Fair Trade economy is based on justice, dignity and respect for people and the planet. We all have a choice when we make a purchase and I encourage you to think about yours. One World Fair Trade exists to create opportunity, equality, respect culture and vision a future where trade is fair. All Rights Reserved. All prices USD. The global free market economic model came under attack during that period and fair trade ideals, built on a Post Keynesian economics approach to economies where price is directly linked to the actual production costs and where all producers are given fair and equal access to the markets, gained in popularity.
The promotion of Fair Trade for coffee began in Holland in , with small-scale farmer cooperatives in Mexico and a Dutch NGO, Solidaridad, creating the first fair trade certification initiative. Following suit, TransFair International, was founded in Germany in From this humble beginning, an international network of Fair Traders was born, in the hopes of raising the political and social consciousness of coffee consumers to the plight of small-scale coffee producers around the world.
This umbrella organization sets the fair trade certification standards and supports, inspects, and certifies disadvantaged farmers. Certification has expanded from coffee to include tea, sugar, cocoa, honey, bananas, fruit juices and now many more products. With the proliferation of Fair Trade initiatives, rules began to overlap and often soften in order to compete for larger market share of business from the major brands.
In an effort to complement the Fairtrade certification system and allow for example handcraft producers to also sell their products outside worldshops, the World Fair Trade Organization WFTO , formerly the International Fair Trade Association founded , launched a new Mark to identify fair trade organizations in as opposed to products in the case of Fairtrade.
Called the FTO Mark, it allows consumers to recognize registered Fair Trade Organizations worldwide and guarantees that standards are being implemented regarding working conditions, wages, child labour and the environment. The FTO Mark gave for the first time Fair Trade Organizations including handcrafts producers definable recognition amongst consumers, existing and new business partners, governments and donors.
Global fair trade sales have soared over the past decade. The increase has been particularly spectacular among Fairtrade labelled goods. Initially the label was only used for coffee sold in the Netherlands but similar initiatives soon grew up across the globe. Fair trade means that farmers receive a base price for their goods, regardless of changes in the price of cocoa, for example, on the exchange markets. This helps them to develop their businesses, and to plan for the future with some degree of certainty and with immunity from the vicissitudes of market fluctuations that have little to do with them.
Today, the Faitrade mark allows shoppers to easily spot items that have been bought, traded and sold under fair trade conditions. As well as coffee, the label is carried by chocolate, sugar, wine, fruit and many more products sold in countries. Header image credit: The Fairtrade Logo, found on all Fairtrade products. TV A new online only channel for history lovers.
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