I’m becoming more and more interested in fair trade (and ending chocolate slavery. Coffee will be next)
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[...] Thanks for visiting. If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Michelle’s comment on this afternoon’s post about Fair Trade made me realise, as I somewhat suspected, that [...]
Ooh, don’t get me started on FairTrade Coffee! If you really want to buy ethical coffee, buy Utz Kapeh or find a seller who does direct trade – like Five Senses and the PNG PSC A. In the coffee industry Fair Trade is a joke. They sell their good stuff on the regular market and sell their crap to Fair Trade. If you’re interested, search “Fair Trade” on coffeesnobs.com.au for some incredibly illuminating discussion.
Here’s a snippet:
Oxfam coffee ‘harms’ poor farmers
Caroline Overington
April 28, 2007
TWO Melbourne academics have lodged formal complaints against Oxfam Australia over the sale of Fairtrade coffee, saying it should not be promoted as helping to lift Third World producers out of poverty because growers are paid very little for their beans.
Tim Wilson, a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, and Sinclair Davidson, professor of institutional economics at RMIT University, have asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate Oxfam, saying it is guilty of misleading or deceptive conduct under the Trade Practices Act.
Mr Wilson said there was evidence that Fairtrade products could do more harm than good for coffee producers in undeveloped nations. He cited reports alleging producers had been charged thousands of dollars to become certified Fairtrade providers and some labourers received as little as $3 a day. — end snippet –
It’s from here, and it’s also worth looking here.
Also, just a question, do you think if you stop buying slave-produced chocolate, the slave traders will just let them go? Or will they sell them into sex slavery or something worse?
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a good thing to be thinking through, but I find the naivety of Westerners a little bit frustrating in this area. It’s like looking down on people in third world countries for having domestic servants. They actually consider it selfish to not have servants, as by paying them, those ‘servants’ can now afford to feed their families! But we sit here in our wealth and shake our heads at the ignominy of domestic servitude.
Fairtrade is a good idea in principle … in practice ..?
michelle glad you replied to this post first.
been thinking a bit after talking with you guys the other night.
what do you reckon of above haysey?
See new post. Sorry to split the discussion up by posting again. Please keep discussing it! I have lots to learn.