The Challenges of Marketing Fair Trade - Wynne, Sandy

• Producers/farmers democratically organized
Fair Trade builds a supply chain starting with the producers’ needs and
considering the social, development and environmental impacts affecting those
producers. Conventional trade models start with consumer demand, often for low priced
goods, with the potential of exploitation of workers and their environment. Fair Trade
makes the consumers connect the dots between their purchases and the consequences of
the supply chain.
The mission of the Fair Trade movement is to reduce poverty and encourage
sustainable development, but also to influence the behavior of private and public entities
involved in trading markets. The European Parliament recognized the importance of Fair
Trade’s goals in a resolution passed in 2006 stating that Fair Trade
has two inseparable objectives: to provide opportunities for development for
small-scale producers and workers in developing countries and to influence
the international trading system and private companies towards becoming more
just and conducive to sustainable development (European Parliamentary Report,
2006, G).
Fair Trade challenges conventional trade models, trade policies, and corporate behavior
to be more transparent and more accountable in the global marketplace.
. 2) The History of Fair Trade
The Fair Trade movement has its roots in the 1940’s when Christian church
groups began selling handicrafts made by the poor in Southern countries directly to
Northern markets. By the 1950’s, Alternative Trade Organizations (ATOs) such as Ten
Thousand Villages and SERRV International were selling handicrafts in the U.S. and
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