Negotiating organic, fair and ethical trade: lessons from smallholders in Uganda and Kenya

Abstract

Global food networks are increasingly governed by transnational standards, accreditation and certification systems regulating social and environmental conditions at distant production sites. These ‘ethical’ accreditation systems have emerged out of concerns about inequalities within the global food system, the environmental effects of agriculture and the social effects of the globalization of food production and, more recently, the food, fuel and financial crises. Responses include mainstream supermarket/industry global sourcing codes and standards (such as GLOBALG.A.P – see p184), grass-roots networks and labelling schemes such as Fair Trade, ‘Ethical Trade’ based on labour codes of practice, and organic certification systems. In each of these regulated alternative food networks, smallholder farmers1 in the global South are positioned as beneficiaries (Blowfield and Dolan, 2008).