Fair Trade has become a bit of a buzz-word in recent years - it is the to the new millennium what the word Organic was to the nineties; a symbol representing something on a semiotic level, a choice consciously made in preference over a less prestigious option. Is this a good thing? The aim of fair trade is to end exploitation of the less economically developed countries where the labour force is so prevalent that wages can be lowered with impunity, and where many people are working 100 hour weeks, sometimes for just a couple of dollars a day. These workers have no rights, no benefits, no protection, and the agricultural producers are subject to the whims of ...  Read the complete review

I think fair-trade has one of the best marketing campaigns I've ever seen....they play on people and make it over simplistic, do this and you'll help! If only global economics was that simple! I believe not giving people the full facts about all sides of the argument is very wrong, so I choose not to support fair-trade and instead am vegetarian which has a massive impact on both the third world and the environment. Shouldn't we all have the choice of how we best view global economics, and not be pressurized by our supermarket or church to only do one thing? Sadly, despite the massive advertising campaign there are no facts or statics about if fair-trade ...  Read the complete review

For my university dissertation last year, I decided to research Fair Trade and in particular Fair Trade Cotton. I have rewritten part of my research here to pass on much of the information I learned to you. Fair Trade ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fair Trade 'Guarantees a better deal for Third World Producers' (The Fair Trade Foundation). Farmers working in developing countries often struggle to provide for their families as a lot of the money they make is passed onto a 'middle-man' who supplies their produce to the rest of the world. Fair Trade aims to cut out this greedy middle-man and make sure the farmers themselves ...  Read the complete review

I’ve not yet read the other reviews on this section because I want to put across my own views first before being influenced by others. I can imagine though that a large majority of reviewers will be in favour of fair-trade. I don’t totally agree. You can see the arguments with fair-trade. What, after all could possibly be wrong with paying a decent price for goods from third world countries? When you put an argument like that, in a simplistic “you pay people more, they have better lives” it seems easy. It’s not that simple. The idea is that producers receive a price which will cover the cost of production and an extra premium for the ...  Read the complete review

"PRODUCED FOR YOU BY SLAVES IN WEST AFRICA!" If, instead of the usual advertising tagline, your favourite chocolate bar suddenly came emblazoned with that message on its wrapper, would you still buy it? Well, would you? "PRODUCED FOR YOU BY WORKERS DYING OF PESTICIDE-RELATED ...  Read the complete review