Talk:Fair trade debate

Adding of the Cato Institue and removing "recently" of The Economist
Both the Cato institute and the Economist exist to support FREE Trade ideas. The economist's founding purpose was this. Given that Free trade and Fair trade are in direct opposition to each other, the Economist has always been against it even if it wasn't important enough for them to talk about until recently. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drewwiki (talk • contribs) 16:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC).

This point has no bearing on the validity of the opinions expressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.134.49 (talk) 10:57, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see that Free and Fair Trade are in direct opposition. Rather, they seem to be two approaches to a similar goal, particularly when applied to poor nations. Free Trade seeks to destroy tariffs and ridiculous domestic subsidies in the rich nations so that surpluses aren't dumped on poor nations, while Fair Trade seeks to tap into rich nation charitable demand by artificially keeping label prices high when market dumping forces them unsustainably low. If both sides think that the other is the enemy (especially like the extremism of WTO protesters), then it detracts from the real long-term solutions to inefficient markets. 99.153.47.186 (talk) 03:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Neutral Point of View
This and other articles about fairtrade read like advertisements are certainly don't take a neutral point of view. I have flagged the artcile as such. It would be great if contributions that could be seen as criticism were not automatically removed by overzealous fairtrade defenders, but would be discussed here first.

The discussion about price is a clear example. Why did the remark about retail pricing get removed? there is date to back it up- you might not agree with its conclusion but we want to present all sides of the debate here. 194.60.106.5 15:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Your comment was removed because it was not backed by credible sources: you quoted both a blog and an Equiterre study. First of all, blogs are not credible academic sources that can be used on Wikipedia. You can't just quote someone who says that "90% of the profit goes to the retailer" without having serious studies or claims backing this up. Second, the Equiterre study... please check your French because the study actually claims exactly the opposite of what you are trying to prove.


 * Also, please be careful when using NPOV tags: drive-by tagging is not permitted on WP: The editor who adds the tag must address the issues on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag. Tags should be added as a last resort.


 * Thank you.Vincentl 20:19, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The whole article seems to be constructed in an unneutral way. The Criticism-Response setup as implemented here seems to carry certain connotations about which side may or may not be correct. I'd propose flagging the article for the neutrality problems until it is rewritten in a more neutral format. --Nogburt (talk) 10:23, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * How would you suggest rewriting it? I thought the criticism-response format was appropriate as it showed both points of view...Vincentl (talk) 21:36, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * "Topic X Debate" pages are almost always inherently difficult to construct in a "neutral" way. The format of the global warming debate article (or at least some of its better parts) seemed to be more of what we'd want here. If I could put the problem with the present format in some way, it is "directional". The structured point-counterpoint format seems to create this sense. It would be better if the two positions where mixed in together for each subissue .   Nogburt (talk) 00:07, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

this article is fair trade propaganda. on every critical argument you have pro fair trade response. how come it's not other way around? it's like fair trade bulletin! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.139.3.188 (talk) 20:58, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Bad responses
Response: The Fairtrade Foundation counters the price distortion argument by claiming that fair trade does not ‘fix prices’. It rather has a minimum floor price that ensures farmers can meet the costs of sustainable production should market prices fall below this level. The minimum price is not a fixed price but the starting point for a market-based price negotiation. Many fair trade growers routinely earn more than this for the quality, type of coffee bean (or other product) or the particular origin they offer. The minimum price mechanism provides the most vulnerable people in the supply chain the security to meet their basic costs in time of crisis. Effectively, it provides a safety net should markets fall below a level considered necessary for farmers to earn back the costs of sustainable production.[6]  criticism claims price floor is bad, this response does not address that claim

Moreoever, the fair trade minimum price only applies if the market price is lower than this. When market prices exceed the minimum price, traders must negotiate on the basis of market prices, not fair trade minimums.[7]criticism only applies to artificially high prices when activated by the price floor, again this response does not address the criticism

Several academics, including Hayes[8], Becchetti and Rosati[9], also identify two other counterarguments to this criticism.

First, in many cases the exchange between producers and intermediaries does not occur in a competitive framework.[9] In such case the market price is a distortion because it does not reflect the productivity of producers but their lower market power.[10] Unknown what is meant by competitive framework, response here is unclear Second, the price distortion argument does not take into account the principles of product differentiation. Coffee, for example, cannot be compared to other commodities such as oil: there is not one single type of coffee but instead many different brands that are differentiated from one another in terms of quality, blends, packaging, and now also "social responsibility" features.'''Not a good response. Product differentiation allows consumers to choose alternatives if the price of one commodity becomes too high'''

Consumer demand and taste defines what different market prices are acceptable for each of these products.[9] In this sense, fair trade can be considered as a market-driven innovation in the food industry that creates a new range of products for which a growing segment of consumers are willing to pay more based on environmental and social responsibility claims.[9] '''Only true if Fair trade was voluntary not imposed by government policy, also not a very good counterargument. Sounds like OR.''' And finally, beyond these elements, it is also important to also take into account all the other non-price related potential benefits of the fair trade value chain in terms of technical assistance, democratization of markets through increasing consumer power, crop diversification programs, etc.[9] If this is going to be reasoned then it is only fair for the critics to claim all the unrealized losses from engaging in fair trade, ie, resources being diverted to a lower valued use resulting in reduction of wealth for society.

Basically, someone needs to address the criticism that Fair Frade, which is a price floor, is the potential (although obviously now realized) artificial increase in a price of a good, and as such results in an oversupply of the good relative to the demand.

Agreed, neither one of these responces address the issue at hand, that price floors create overproduction which is harmful to the farmers in the long run because of the downward pressure it would apply to the free market price, eventually causing a 'correction' when the 2 become to out of step, devistating the industry as well as discouraging farmers from producing and innovating means of productions of other goods. By not addressing these issues it confuses the argument to the reader. Perhaps a proper solution would be to further emphasize these critisism in the point then continue the validity of keeping the responses a part of the counter point. TylerSontag (talk) 13:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Case studys
'''Meet Toni Shina from the Cape Town-based The Backpack, one of the most recent businesses to be certified as a Fair Trade member. She said:

“Fair Trade Tourism South Africa recognises our commitment to uplifting our staff and community, and our utilisation of local service providers.

"As a business we also have a strong and positive attitude to working with and supporting staff who are affected by HIV and Aids and we abide strongly with required labour and legal standards.”

Successful companies - from upmarket game lodges to adventure specialists - are now members of the initiative which promotes the fair trade businesses to tour operators and agents. The DFID grant was used to develop the assessment process, training of independent assessors to monitor compliance with the rules and development of the fair trade tourism website.

In a recent survey of the local tourism industry, half recognised the Fair Trade Tourism South Africa brand, demonstrating the impact that this initiative has already achieved.

While the certification is currently only available for South African tourism businesses, the standards and assessment tools developed are clearly relevant to the global tourism industry, which in 2005 contributed around 10.6 per cent to global Gross Domestic Product (according to the World Travel and Tourism Council).''' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.249.48.115 (talk) 16:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The Profit Criticism
The ASI report stated that only 10% of the increased fair trade prices actually reach farmers. The other 90% goes to the retailers and supply chain agents. There is a criticism which is simply that if you look purely at the results of fair trade, what it is is a mechanism to increase retail profits. People shell out an extra dollar or two for a fair trade coffee or whatever - and the retailer and supply agents take almost all of that money - in fact, they could hardly take more without fair trade actually passing on no money at all to the farmers and so being *absolutely* a fake. No wonder Starbucks et al are so enthusisatic about fair trade. Toby Douglass (talk) 10:31, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Are completely the numbers make it look like little more than a feel good for consumers and a marketing gimmick for retailers who end up selling a "good feeling". It is a drop in the bucket which gives the appearance of change thus preventing any real change to occur. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 22:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Impact on conventional producers argument
The response does not address the criticism, in that it only talks about localised broader effects, and not the criticism of it disadvantaging african producers. The criticism in fact acknowledges that local/regional culture changes are achievable, but this does not address the criticism that it may lower the price for African producers etc. This rebuttall needs to be fleshed out, or removed? 121.73.149.66 (talk) 10:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I am not at all happy about this section either. I would like to make the following changes The first bit, about overproduction is straightforward economics. It ignores the other ways in which Fairtrade harms other farmers.

Response: Several academics, including Hayes,[22] Becchetti and Rosati,[23] identify two counterarguments to this criticism. First, in many cases the exchange between producers and intermediaries does not occur in a competitive framework.[23] In such case the market price is a distortion because it does not reflect the productivity of producers but their lower market power.[24]: This is true of all markets, but it does not mean that economic analysis is impossible. Still less does it invalidate the overproduction argument. Hayes argued using an equally arbitrary and unrealistic set of assumptions. His model and those of the Free Marketers could be perfectly logical but irrelevant to the real world. The argument as presented here does not address the criticism.

Second, the price distortion argument does not take into account the principles of product differentiation. Coffee, for example, cannot be compared to other commodities such as oil: there is not one single type of coffee but instead many different brands that are differentiated from one another in terms of quality, blends, packaging, and now also "social responsibility" features. Consumer demand and taste defines what different market prices are acceptable for each of these products.[23] In this sense, fair trade can be considered as a market-driven innovation in the food industry that creates a new range of products for which a growing segment of consumers are willing to pay more based on environmental and social responsibility claims.[23] Again the argument does not address the criticism. For all agricultural markets we use economic modelling in spite of product differentiation - and oil too has enormous product differentiation and quality differences. Certainly we do very sophisticated quality analysis when appropriate - the subject was developed for agricultural products - but it is not appropriate here. Yes it might be appropriate to discuss this under another header, but not here - I can provide excellent references. But it is not a response, certainly not as presented here.

"And finally, beyond these elements, it is also important to also take into account all the other non-price related potential benefits of the fair trade value chain in terms of technical assistance, democratization of markets through increasing consumer power, crop diversification programs, etc.[23]" I do not think it is appropriate to tag on such things without explanation. The technical assistance argument in fact supports the overproduction argument. I would deleteAidWorker (talk) 17:38, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Agricultural Economics and Marketing Perspective
I have put in the Agricultural Economics and Marketing perspective because this is the discipline that has always covered all aspects from production, not least in the Third World, to the supermarket shelf. It has an enormous body of theory and practical experience. It is fully referenced.AidWorker (talk) 16:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I removed " The Fairtrade Foundation responds to the argument by claiming that there is absolutely no evidence that fair trade makes other farmers worse off – in fact, "co-operatives often bring competition into local markets for coffee for the first time, forcing other traders to match their prices so that more farmers benefit". " because a press release from a commercial organization has no status in Wikipedia. It is irrelevant that there is such evidence.AidWorker (talk) 16:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC) Again "The Fairtrade Foundation counters The Economists assertions by citing a range of studies conducted in 2005 concluding that the majority of retailers do not increase their profit margins on fairtrade products, for fear of losing market share in the growing market.[citation needed]" is not evidence, and goes against Wiki rules that contentious statements must have full citations.AidWorker (talk) 16:52, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Scope of fair trade debate
I would like to put the Economist criticism under another heading. There are others to go under the same heading.

The supposed response does not address these particular criticisms, and I would remove. OK?

Criticism: As The Economist magazine pointed out in its December 7, 2006 issue, “another objection to Fairtrade is that certification is predicated on political assumptions about the best way to organise labour. In particular, for some commodities (including coffee) certification is available only to co-operatives of small producers, who are deemed to be most likely to give workers a fair deal when deciding how to spend the Fairtrade premium. Coffee plantations or large family firms cannot be certified.

Response: On the other hand, fair trade supporters, such as Oxford University professor Alex Nicholls, argue that the program was created in the first place to address market failures affecting small farmers' organizations. As opposed to plantations for example, perfect market information, perfect access to markets and credit, and the ability to switch production techniques and outputs in response to market information are fundamental assumptions which are fallacious in the context of small farmers' organizations in the developing world.[27] Fair trade is seen as an attempt to address these market failures by providing to the most in need a stable price for their crop, business support, access to premium Northern markets and better general trading conditions.

AidWorker (talk) 17:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I have reorganized the layout as requested: the various points made in the discussion had got mixed up with each other, which made the discussion confusing. Each point is a significant, discrete, part of the debate. The political criticisms are a small part of the debate, and I have put them in one section. I have not removed any of the points for or against. The subheadings are there for a reason: see Wikipedia Layout.AidWorker (talk) 17:35, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Someone, presumably Crane or Davies has removed a quotation from their paper which shows a problem that has been noted by others. The fact that most of the paper covers other issues does not remove the fact that they made the statement.AidWorker (talk) 14:57, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Merger or deletion of information in International Fairtrade Certification Mark Article
As a guest, I don't feel confident to make any changes myself, but could someone look at the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fairtrade_Certification_Mark ? There is a 2500 word section on criticism of fair trade, quite poorly written and difficult to follow. It is heavily referenced, but seems to contain a lot of highly biased, heavily over stated, or un-supported claims.

Also, it seems to me that the article about the mark itself is no place for large section on criticisms of fair trade, surely that should go here or the main fair trade article, and the article on the mark should be kept to a history of the mark, and any controversies surrounding the mark itself, not fair trade in general.

I'd recommend that the entire criticism section be deleted, and any information that is relevant and supported be moved into this article. Does that sound reasonable?

I've just looked more clearly at this article, and realised that the criticism section in the article I refered to is just a copy/paste of this article, only without any formatting. I'm deleting it. Will comment in the talk page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fairtrade_Certification_Mark as well. If this is not the correct thing to do, please let me know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.250.206 (talk) 23:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I was working on coffee in Vietnam in 1989. The statements ascribed to Smith are false. There had been a massive increase in production in the previous ten years. The prices paid were very high indeed, and farmers and government believed them to be subsidized. Preferential credit and input subsidies are part of the price package. And yes the Vietnamese state did set prices (partly by having different exchange rates for favoured crops.) Peter@Bowbrick.eu — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.100.136 (talk) 14:18, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Some corrections
I was working on coffee in Vietnam in 1989. The statements ascribed to Smith are false. There had been a massive increase in production in the previous ten years. The prices paid were very high indeed, and farmers and government believed them to be subsidized. Preferential credit and input subsidies are part of the price package. And yes the Vietnamese state did set prices (partly by having different exchange rates for favoured crops.) Peter@Bowbrick.eu — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.100.136 (talk) 14:20, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors should not pontificate. It is of no interest to know that one anonymous editor believes that certain views ‘are strongly questioned by the application of more sophisticated frames of analysis’, ‘some of these criticisms are grounded in acceptable standards of evidence (and deserve serious attention)’; ‘Unfortunately, this is methodologically flawed analysis’; ‘critics rightly highlight’; ‘if they continue to participate in the sheme it can be assumed that they are happy with the arrangement’; ‘However, this is highly contestable on a variety of grounds’ ‘makes the excellent point however’; ‘is instead grounded the most rudimentary use of economic theory’; ‘there are prominent quantities studies which indicate that this is the case’; ‘Unfortunately, as has been pointed out, the example of Vietnam is highly inappropriate ‘; ‘some of these criticisms are grounded in acceptable standards of evidence (and deserve serious attention)’; ‘criticisms remain assertions with little or no credible evidence to support them’ ‘minimum prices (the mention of which is unfortunately like a red-rag to the neo-liberal bull)’; and that he should put scare quotes around parts of statements he disagrees with.

It would be helpful, too, if editors checked sources before citing them. The Henderson comment actually supports the overproduction argument as stated rather than criticizing it, and incidentally his criticisms have not (yet) been incorporated in this page. It is surprising that someone has cited Smith (2010) quoting Eakina, Winkelsb, and Sendzimirc [sic] (2009) and Nguyen when Griffiths (2011a,b) states ‘The papers [Smith] cites in support do not make the statements he claims, or anything like them.’ Surprisingly the editor has cited Smith (2010) as recognizing that it is improper to generalize from case studies, when in fact an important part of Griffith’s 2010 paper was that most of Smith’s work was generalizing from case studies– and when Smith’s response was anything but accepting of this. The same editor then cites perhaps six case studies (only two of which are named or cited) and generalizes ‘While these are individual and highly specific examples, one trend in findings is that while the benefits of Fairtrade certification are maximised in periods of depressed global prices they do reduce when international prices increase.’

I have removed some contentious and unreferenced statements, and some claims which are neither referenced nor, even in principle, verifiable. There are also statements which are incomprehensible. AidWorker (talk) 11:29, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Essay or personal reflection
What is this nonsense about this page being an essay or personal reflection? This page contains concise summaries of the main issues in the fair trade debate, fully referenced - which is what an encyclopaedia is supposed to do. There are a lot of other pages that do require root and branch rewriting to get rid of false, unreferenced, unverifiable statements and thousands of words of irrelevant waffle. Why not start on those? For example, while someone has made a start on the Fair trade page - thank you someone for major input on this - there remain weeks or months of hard work to make it into an acceptable encyclopaedia entry.AidWorker (talk) 16:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Reference formatting
I've just reformatted some of the references to be consistent with Wikipedia standards. Does anyone object to pulling apart some of the huge ref blocks (e.g., this) and using ref names to make things easier? Me, Myself &#38; I (talk) 06:31, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Unclear Language
I tried to make the language clearer in the first few sections, though there's a lot I still find unclear about this article that I don't know how to fix because I don't know a lot about Fairtrade (that's why I wanted to read the article!)


 * 1) "Little money reaches the developing world" - What is the "kickback" being mentioned? Is it a cash payment or a change in quality required?


 * 1) "Less money reaches farmers"
 * 2) It says "over the years" - Over what years? Is 18%-37% the total range, some sort of confidence interval, or something else entirely?
 * 3) Bulleted list item
 * 4) "No evidence that Fairtrade farmers get higher prices on average" - I added a "citation needed" since we'd need an expert in the field to verify that they have definitely checked all available sources and found nothing.
 * 5) The last sentence read "The claim that Fairtrade guarantees a ‘fair price’ for the producer is not supported by the evidence and although it is possible that Fair Trade may do so on occasions, there is no reason to believe that this is normal." This contains no citations and appears to just be a summary of the previous sentences.


 * 1) "Lack of Evidence and Impact".
 * 2) "Capturing such socially constructed benefit" - Does this refer to benefits to the agency and perspective of non-fairtrade farmers, or to other factors, including "confidence in business relationships"?
 * 3) "A major problem is that many people discussing Fairtrade fail to understand the difference" - This reads really confrontationally, so I changed it to something that sounds a little less like "You're stupid for not recognizing this difference".
 * 4) When it says "(which accept studies that would not be acceptable to the World Bank etc.)", is this pointing out that the standards to be considered an "impact study" are still relatively lax? That is, it's not a strict criteria, it's not strict enough for the world bank, but few studies can even match these criteria. For that matter, are the "etc." and "for instance" redundant?

Sam Jaques (talk) 06:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 28 December 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved (closed by non-admin page mover)  SITH   (talk)   10:12, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Fair trade debate → Fairtrade debate – This article deals primarily with issues concerning the Fairtrade brand, and doesn't have much discussion about the concept of free trade, or debates around any other brands. As such, the current article title seems misleading. Gilded Snail (talk) 07:13, 28 December 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reverting move, article scope
I reverted the previous move because enough of the article and its sources either focus on free trade in general or do not seem to make a distinction either due to conflating the two or inconsistent capitalisation. 93 (talk) 10:10, 30 June 2019 (UTC)