Fair trade

"Fair Trade is a system of exchange where purchasers agree to pay a slightly higher cost to make sure providers are able to maintain a decent standard of living."


- definition of www.worldwidefairtrade.com -


As coffee is the second most valuable commodity in the world after oil, there is a significant human trafficking and exploitation in the coffee industry. Being mostly located in Central and South America and Africa, workers on large plantations are often forced to harvest and dry beans for lots of hours with little or no pay. Little farmers often struggle to compete with the low prices of the large farms, as they sometimes also use child and exploited labor. But even in the U.S., coffee is not always fairly produced: Kaua'i Coffee, a hawaii-based brand, has recently been accused to have six enslaved Thai workers on their plantation. To end this misery "fair trade" has been initialized as a certificate on products, to give the consumers a choice whether to support human exploitation or to make a first step towards a better world where people live and work under human and equal conditions.


During the lesson we collected several organizations who either supported fair trade or got in the medial focus because of a scandal concerning it. Looking them up I found out that:


- Starbucks makes great efforts to support fair trade, especially referring to their own website, but that there are still some people demanding more fair trade products and less ignorance concerning costumers' demands for this. But still, in opposition to the two other ruling coffee companies in the U.S. Costa and Caffe Nero, Starbucks is the only company selling fair trade products after all. In the UK for example exists a coffee shop called "AMT Coffee" - the first UK coffee shop to go 100% Fairtrade with its coffee, and offer 100% organic milk. Hopefully more of stores like that will grow in the U.S. and Europe as well, so that we get a opportunity in everyday life to do our bit for more equality and humanity.


- GAP is involved in a huge scandal concerning child labor - even if they talk about a policy in their official statement, which says that every child that is discovered being used by contractors has to be removed from work, brought back to school and deserves a guarantee of no need to work until it reaches the official working age. But his policy often doesn't succeed as current test show, so that there a still too many children working under degrading circumstances.