Talk:Fairtrade certification/Archive 1

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 15:00, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The discussion about retail pricing took place on the fair trade discussion page (two words) - it's still there, please do not confuse the two pages.


 * In the end, your comments were removed simply because there was no data to back up your claims. You can't just quote some random blog and then expect to insert it in the criticism section without any justification. And please discuss these issues on the comment page before tagging the entire article. Vincentl 20:11, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

In several parts of this article, there seem to be clear examples of unencyclopedic language. For instance, in the "Fairtrade standards" section, the term "decent" is used. What is a decent wage? I have ideas of what I think a decent wage is. But those ideas don't belong in an encyclopedia unless they are substantiated by something. --Nogburt (talk) 23:39, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Major Edits
I was surprised to browse Wikipedia and find very little information on Fairtrade labelling and the FLO system. I have been involved in the Fair Trade movement for a couple of years now and I felt like I should correct and update the various pages Fair Trade, Fairtrade Labelling and create new pages for FLO and the International Fairtrade Certification Mark.

I added information on the Nestle Controversy - it was a very one-sided argument so I added the official response from the Fairtrade Foundation.

I also added a brief overview of FLO standards... it makes it a bit easier to understand the Fairtrade labelling and certification process.

I updated some of the numbers on sales etc. and included them to the first paragraph. I got those from the FLO Annual Report 2005.

I changed the picture on the top of the page - I thought it would be more appropriate to have a picture of a Fairtrade producer instead of just coffee. I uploaded the picture and obtained the rights from the author who works for FLO.

There is still a lot of editing to be done on this page... please let me know if you disagree with any of my changes.

Quebecois1983 12:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for labelling
Is there any way someone who knows more about the subject could post a list of criteria that a company must abide by to attain a fairtrade sticker for its products? I think the extent of what is required is important for the fairtrade debate and the information needs to be out there. e.g. Is a company really operating 'unfairly' if it pays a decent local wage, maintains good health and safety standards yet doesn't subsidise the building of a local hospital, etc?
 * All the details you could possibly want are to be found here at the Fairtrade Labelling Organization website. (Actually, probably a lot more detail than you want; if you do take the time to digest the info a bit, feel free to add some of that digested info to the article.) Rd232 20:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
 * May I offer this as a possible general statement to explain the fairtrade requirements?

Fairtade is an attempt to give agricultural workers -- both small farm owners (who must form into larger organizations in order to participate), and groups of hired workers (who must also form into an organization, and have say over the workings of the large company for which they work) -- from economically disadvantaged areas of the globe a chance to gain a greater opening into the global market, while at the same time ensuring that these agricultural working groups use only environmentally sound farming practices as well as following the ILO's general rules of fair labor practices. Any group who enters the fairtrade network must set up a system of accountability in the first year, and in subsequent years it must continually show progress made towards the goals of sustainable environmental and fair labor practices. For example, the preservation and enrichment of local soil and water quality is a general goal, GMO's are not allowed in production, the use of many pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides, etc. are prohibited, and child labor as well as the use of forced labor from prisoners or spouses, etc. is prohibited. It would seem that the idea behind fairtrade is to empower those people from poor countries who are trying to make a living from working off the land, while ensuring that they do not either get crushed by large companies, or resort to harmful practices just in the attempt to break into the difficult business of production and export of agricultural products.

If anyone reading this thinks this is okay or that with some tweaking it would work, then please by all means add it to the page?


 * This whole paragraph needs to be changed to apply to all workers/industries, not just agriculture. Sui iuris 00:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Both these ideas are WP:Original Research unless referenced to sources I would be surprised to hear exist; Fairtrade is an agricultural product labeling program.

Article name
This article has existed for some time at Fairtrade labelling. A number of organisations, including the umbrella organisation Fairtrade Labelling Organisations, use the one word form "fairtrade", and this is also the preferred British English usage. In American English "fair trade" (two words) is standard, but Wikipedia is not a US encyclopedia, and US usage does not automatically win. It is decided on an article-by-article basis, and any proposed change to the status quo requires discussion beforehand. (There is also a secondary Wiki convention that the initial usage adopted in an article should be kept unless there is good reason not to.) Rd232 22:34, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some more info: "Fairtrade" is European trademark of FLO. "Fair Trade" or "Fairly Traded" can be used by retailers/producers that are not FLO-certified. "Fair Trade Certified" is the US trademark of TransFair (part of FLO). Therefore "Fairtrade labelling" is probably the best option anyway.


 * I agree - Fairtrade is the term used to refer to Fairtrade labelling initiatives worldwide while Fair Trade is commonly used to refer to the Fair Trade movement as a whole. The difference is thus fairly straightforward. Confusion however comes from the fact that TransFair Canada and Transfair USA have kept using the words Fair Trade to refer to labelling in North America, despite the international consensus... hopefully that will change. ah politics. Quebecois1983 12:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Terrorism
"Some fairtrade-certified companies have voiced support for Communist and even Terrorist organizations, which raises concerns about whether consumers seeking to help the Third World might be unwittingly funding human rights abuse." This is quite an accusation and should either be backed up with evidence (in the article or as an external link) or removed. -- Spudtater 4 July 2005 20:59 (UTC)
 * Sh*t, I missed the addition of that insane section. I've removed it now. Rd232 4 July 2005 23:00 (UTC)

Criticism of Fairtrade?
There was a very good article in The Economist recently that was critical of fairtrade. Maybe that would be a good place to start?86.132.198.177 15:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

All the Fairtrade / Fair Trade related pages changed a lot since March - Fairtrade Certification is now a sub-page on the topic, dealing only with the certification scheme. Criticism of fair trade now has its own page - and it includes the criticism contained in The Economist article. There is also a summary of the criticism on the main Fair Trade page. I hope this helps! Vincentl 15:19, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Might be a good idea to link the Criticism page to this one as well. Just a thought.

67.158.109.241 17:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC) Tom G.

It seems like the criticism section in here is just a copy of part of the criticism section in the fair trade article? Does it make sense to have the redundancy? Lot49a (talk) 21:21, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree - just added criticism relevant to certification. Took out the redundant criticism on Fair trade. Vincentl (talk) 03:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

There is this sentence at the end of the first paragraph "The effectiveness of Fairtrade is questionable; workers on Fairtrade farms have a lower standard of living than on similar farms outside the Fairtrade system.[4]" It is a criticism of the whole system based on a study on a few producers. Shouldn't that be rewritten in a better way? 94.137.118.136 (talk) 21:52, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Weasel words?
In the fourth paragraph the intro "It would seem..." caught my eye. Is this grounds for an OR tag or something? It sounds (to me) HIGHLY suspiscious, I wanted to check before adding a template over this one instance. 68.39.174.238 10:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * removed that para - it didn't really add anything to the article. Rd232 talk 12:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Examples badly needed
I find this article very general and uninformative. After reading it, I feel that I have been blandly reassured, but I still don't know much about the economics of fairtrade, which is the whole point. A couple of examples would probably do wonders for the article. Take a particular date, like the end of 2006, and compare the price that banana farmers worldwide typically received for their crop (comparing several countries against each other in a table would be great), and then list what banana farmers in a fairtrade program typically received for their crop. Preferably in the same country of course. And then repeat this on the consumer side: in England, America, and Japan, what were the typical prices of bananas for consumers on that date, and compare it to typical prices of fairtrade bananas. This will get to the heart of the issue, which is how much more fairtrade products cost consumers, and how much this actually benefits the farmers.

And then an obvious question is: if I'm a banana farmer, I obviously want to get fairtrade customers, right, since they're paying a lot more for their bananas. Which are the banana farmers that are able to get the few fairtrade customers, and why? (I would have said "coffee" instead of "banana" in all instances above, but didn't because coffee is probably the worst example one could use, because Subsaharan West African Arabica beans might be the popular beans one year, throwing off all the comparisons worldwide.)

This information sounds like it ought to be out there and accessible - I think it's required for the article to have any concreteness. Tempshill 05:20, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the input. I'd love to help and I think I know where to find the information you're asking for. Check the Fairtrade page in the upcoming days and let me know what you think.Vincentl 05:40, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

"Fair" price?
The article described the price offered in the early Max Havelaar effort as "fair price, significantly above the market price." What price is "fair" seems subjective. I edited this to just say the price was above market. I don't think this alters the point of the sentence, but gets rid of the subjectivity.

17:39, 3 January 2007 (UTC) Tom G.

Sentence?
I'm not totally sure what this sentence means:

The initiative offered disadvantaged coffee producers following various social and environmental standards as well as an above market price, for their crop.

I think it's supposed to say the arrangement offers those following various standards an above market price for their cop, but I'll let someone more knowledgeable on the topic decide if it's true or not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.137.161.155 (talk) 20:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

General Problems with Values as Facts
I've noticed that many of these sorts of articles use words like "decent", "fair", and so on in statements of fact. This would require that there be some factual and encyclopedic standard of these things. Because I know of no such standards and I do not think that any are forthcoming, I would highly recommend that all uses of value-laden terminology be either removed or framed in a context such that it shows that those values are not "the correct values".

This will, of course, be difficult because Fairtrade is all about values. But those valued need to be clearly framed as someone or the other's values as opposed to universal truth. I have marked a few items as "vague" or otherwise where I thought that there were these sorts of problems.

--Nogburt (talk) 00:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with most of those. Article could do with more details and some updates. Rd232 talk 00:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Does fair trade "work"
I have added a few references discussing weather or not "fair trade" actually works. The final reports from this group ( for those who have read them ). Contain feel good statements but little to no evidence. It seems by looking at the number that fair trade is more of a for of advertising than a method of increasing the percentage of retail sales that make there way to the producer of goods. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Criticism image
I think that image is of such a poor quality that it does not lend anything to the article. Even when expanded one is unable to decipher any real information from the image and there is more emphasis on the UK charity Traidcraft than Fairtrade itself. At any rate I see no correlation between the image and the text to which it is adjacent. Any thoughts/objections to removal?  raseaC talk to me 14:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Criticism
How about a section referring to 'fairtrade' as a marketing tool. For instance, a coffee shop will put a 10% premium on their fair-trade coffee, when only about 1% of their overheads are the coffee beans. Its more a way of extorting money from the 'wealthy and concerned'. I think the criticism section should reflect this.Mtaylor848 (talk) 13:50, 12 June 2010 (UTC)


 * This issue is already addrssed within this article. RK (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Are there competitiors to Fair trade? Similar certifications?
Are there competitiors to Fair trade? Similar certifications, from totally separate organizations. Is Rainforest Alliance considered a similar type of initiative? Are there others? RK (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

MAJOR EDIT REQUIRED
I would like to do a major edit, so that this page covers what it says it does, and nothing else. Fine to put links to pages on pricing, impact studies, criticism, history etc. But what happens now is that there are bits and bobs of information on these, which are not updated when the main pages are. And of course there is so much extraneous information that you cannot easily find what you want. I do not think that this is controversial, just good presentationAidWorker (talk) 09:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

"workers on Fairtrade farms have a lower standard of living"
That's an obvious and glaring blanket statement. The "article" (minuscule piece of text that it is) even mentions, several times, that it's what they found the study to "suggest". A study which "only" encompasses Ethiopia and Uganda.

I'm not disputing the study, or even the article here - I just don't think you can draw that conclusion so universally and without detail. At the very least it's not enough with only one source to do so.

RhoDaZZ (talk) 18:28, 29 December 2014 (UTC)