21 - Fair trade: a basis for adequate producers’ incomes, farm reinvestment and quality and safety focused production

Abstract

This chapter illustrates the role and importance of ethical (fair) trade in the agricultural production chain. It analyses the organic market and illustrates the role of the accreditation schemes and the local certification bodies. Ethical trade is a generic term that can be applied to schemes that employ sets of social and/or environmental values within the production and marketing process. This can be in terms of inter alia human rights, worker welfare, producer livelihoods, sustainable production methods, animal welfare, and biodiversity. The European Fair Trade Association [“EFTA”] describes the objectives of fair trade as aiming to contribute to the alleviation of poverty in southern countries through establishing a system of trade allowing marginalized producers in the south to gain access to the northern markets. As a result, fair trade is mainly concerned with the treatment of producers and workers within agricultural production systems. Although both social and environmental standards are encompassed, which are not normally associated with conventional trade, animal welfare or production methods that are environmentally benign are not guaranteed by fair trade initiatives. A wider concept of fair trade is, however, evolving to include not only fair trade agreements and safe working conditions for disadvantaged producers and employees, but also sustainable and environmentally safe management of natural resources.