fair trade federation

What Is Fair Trade?

Fair trade is an international alternative trading system designed to empower disadvantaged farmers, artisans, and labourers. The movement began 50 years ago when international aid organizations worked to help farmers and labourers in Africa break free from oppressive trading practices. These inequitable trading practices still exist today.

Farmers and artisans in developing countries rely on intermediaries for market information and trade. These middlemen usually pay less than market price and keep the producers trapped in a cycle of poverty. Small-scale farmers cant afford to produce the crop. They cant afford the overhead or their financings interest rates. They abandon their farms, or, in the case of some cocoa producers, they employ unpaid workers, often children.

Through fair trade, farmers and artisans deal directly with members of fair trade organizations, bypassing the middleman and receiving a fair and sustainable wage f