“Fair trade” – not that difficult, right? Fairness plays a big role in our society – actually. Fair play is one of the basic principles in sport; particularly fair athletes are prominently honored and sometimes even given hero status. The children learn how to treat each other fairly at school. “Fair trade” can’t be that difficult?!
The reality of many farmers
But imagine: you have been working in the fields with your parents every day since you were very young. There is no time for school with all the drudgery anyway, which is why there is no prospect of doing anything else at some point. So you know full well that this will most likely be like this for the rest of your life and on top of that you can't really make a living from it. If you later have children of your own, you will have no choice but to send them to work in the fields too. Other perspectives: zero. A vision of terror? Well, for many children and young people in many developing countries this is everyday life.
“Fair trade” vs. “unfair trade”
Without the concept of “Fair Trade” it often works like this in developing countries (especially in many countries in Africa, Asia and South America): farmers are forced to sell their goods to middlemen. They then sell these goods to corporations and processing companies. In order to make as much profit as possible, these middlemen pay the farmers extremely little - which the farmers cannot do anything about, as they rely on the middlemen to buy the goods.
The bitter motto is: “It’s better to get little than nothing at all”. When the price (e.g. for cocoa) falls on the market, the farmers immediately get less money, but they don't get more when it rises - the traders and manufacturers always earn the most. On top of that, the farmers also have to buy seeds and fertilizer from them, and in the process they go into debt and thus become even more dependent on them and their low prices than they already are. Does that all sound pretty unfair? Even.
The fair option
Let's assume that some corporations simply ignore the fraudulent middlemen and instead go directly to the farmers and say: "We will pay you higher prices, offer you long-term purchase guarantees, supplements for pension provision and also cheap loans so that you can buy your own machines or seeds You can buy it.” Sounds better – and that’s exactly what “Fair Trade” means. However, this doesn't work for all farmers and only as long as the resulting products are bought in rich countries! And globally, these rich people are still us.
What and where you can buy fairly

Then what's going on there? In any case, not just coffee or cocoa, but also honey, chocolate, tea, cookies, confectionery, orange juice, wine, bananas, sugar. Footballs, jeans, T-shirts and trendy sneakers or Chucks are also available. You can recognize fairly traded products by the corresponding logos such as the Fairtrade logo. You can find this on more and more products in health food stores, supermarkets or discounters. Or you can take a look around the nearest world store, where there are even more fair products from importers such as GEPA, El Puente, dwp or banafair.
You can find fair clothes mainly on the Internet, but there are also more and more fair boutiques. In the textile sector you will find, among others, the GOTS, IVN Best, bluesign and Fair Wear Foundation seals, which also stand for better working conditions. You can also ask for fair clothing in large department stores. By the way, fair trade products are not always more expensive than conventional ones. Compare the prices!
Label and seal
There are many symbols on products that are intended to emphasize various quality characteristics. What they mean can be found in the article about labels and seals .
More info?
Source: Consumer advice center NRW
Also interesting: Oat milk: self-experimentation with sad findings
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