James5

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Interesting article from The Guardian on some of the issues and problems with fairtrade certification. It seems one of the biggest problems with the system is that demand just isn’t keeping up with supply. Though there are many farmers certified and growing “fairtrade” product, if there aren’t consumers to buy it it means they have to rely on traditional markets. This means getting a dodgy price for their product and makes it very difficult to make back the money paid in certification fees.

And for many groups there are some rocky years where they may not sell very much. There are many, many groups in the Fairtrade movement who are only selling 2-3%. But there are also many groups selling 40% and 100%.

Of course these sort of problems aren’t arguments to go buy Nescafe instead - rather it just shows the system is not right yet. There aren’t many alternatives out there, and especially ones that are as independent, well-known and clear as fairtrade. While some coffee suppliers have abandoned fairtrade, opting to either set up their own certification system or just ask us to trust their word, it is difficult with all the FUD out there as companies try to greenwash themselves into our pantry.

The Fairtrade system is perfect, there are some serious issues especially in regards to the price of certification, but it’s one of the best systems we have to provide some sort of guarantee that the person who made our product got a fair wage and that’s far better then the current ‘free market’ alternatives.

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