Fair trade and development: A changing paradigm

• Published in: The Politics of Fair Trade pp. 87 - 104
• Main Author: Jaffee, Daniel
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2011
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Domestic Fair Trade; Fair Trade Prices; FLO; Max Havelaar; Fair Trade Market; Oxfam UK; FLO Standard; Fairtrade Premium; Early Fair Traders; WFTO; Fair Trade Movement; NGO Ally; ATOs; Transfair USA; National Certifiers; UK Retailer; Fair Trade System; FLO System; Fair Trade Coffee; Fair Trade Cocoa; Small Producer Co-operatives; FLO International; Fair Trade; Equal Exchange; Product Specific Standards
• ISBN: 1857435125; 9781857435122; 9781857437607; 1857437608
• DOI: 10.4324/9780203831106-8

By the time the fair trade movement celebrated the 20th anniversary of its founding in 2008, it had been transformed virtually beyond recognition. From a marginal European movement characterized by small ethical companies, non-profit charities, solidarity groups and alternative trading organizations (ATOs) selling coffee and handicrafts to a small group of politicized consumers through alternative world shops, fair trade has become an international market system with annual sales of nearly US $5,000m. (€3,500m.) (FLO 2010), reaching mass audiences of mainstream shoppers across the global North with a wide range of food and non-food products originating from both small producer co-operatives and large agribusiness plantations in nearly 60 nations. Some of the largest transnational food corporations now sell fair trade labelled products, in addition to thousands of smaller companies, and fair trade enjoys widespread consumer recognition in many countries. The fair trade system has also become institutionalized, with a large international certification and co-ordinating body establishing and enforcing generic and product-specific standards, as well as national certification and licensing bodies in 20 countries.