The Importance Of Fair Trade In The Global Market

Fair Trade In The Global Market

In the global market, all countries are interdependent and economically building off one another’s strengths. This is where fair trade plays a part in this global dependence. Fair trade is an idea that is meant to benefit not only the buyer but the seller as well. It keeps developing countries growing while also providing the goods that match the price. The idea of this is directed towards companies from developed countries purchasing from third world producers. This paper is intended to give insight to whether fair trade is true to the origin or not. There are some issues with fair trade in the global market. The first issue that directly hurts the third world producer is payment in exchange for goods. The

The buyers are paying a small price for a good that should be enough to support the community and individual workers. This is not in accordance with the definition of fair trade. In the words of O’Hara from VICE, “In some cases, the study found, improvements to working conditions such as modern toilets were reserved only for senior managers, and money that cooperatives designated for schools for the children of workers went to build teacher’s housing instead.” (O’Hara, 2014) The money that is made from the fair trade cannot support everyone so it is distributed poorly like paying off the white collared workers. This lack of payment to afford basic necessities for farmers and prioritizing what is needed in a community ties into my second point as

I had not thought that the companies would turn around good intentions to their favor even in fair trade. By doing this research, I have realized that many businesses will try whatever they are able to make more money. If the issues of this fair trade agreement were to be known, the impact on the global market would be heavy. Most, if not all, brands would turn to direct trade as the favor towards fair trade diminishes. This could in turn cause fair trade to be removed from the global trade as a whole. If the truth of fair trade is recognized, perhaps the consumers could find actual methods of supporting third-world countries.

References

Shaw, A. (2010). The Destructive Fair Trade Movement. Retrieved from http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/09/the_destructive_fairtrade_move.html

Renton, A. (2009). Capitalism Chews Over Fair Trade. Retrieved from