Fair trade is a system of exchange that seeks to create greater equity and partnership in the international trading system by

• Providing fair wages in the local context,

• Supporting safe, healthy, and participatory workplaces,

• Supplying financial and technical support to build capacity,

• Promoting environmental sustainability,

• Respecting cultural identity,

• Offering public accountability and transparency,

• Building direct and long-term relationships, and

• Educating consumers.

FTF members foster partnerships with producers, because they know these connections are a highly effective way to help producers help themselves.

Fair trade is not about charity. It is an holistic approach to trade and development that aims to alter the ways in which commerce is conducted, so that trade can empower the poorest of the poor. Fair Trade Organizations seek to create sustainable and positive change in developing and developed countries.

History

Fair trade traces its roots to 1946 when Edna Ruth Byler, a volunteer for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), visited an MCC sewing class in Puerto Rico where she discovered the talent the women had for creating beautiful lace and the extraordinary poverty in which they lived despite their hard work. She began carrying these pieces back to the United States to sell and returning the money back to these groups directly. Her work grew into Ten Thousand Villages, which opened its first fair trade shop in 1958 and is now the largest fair trade retailer in North America. In 1949, Sales Exchange for Refugee Rehabilitation and Vocation (SERRV International) began helping refugees in Europe recover from World War II. Today, they support artisans in more than 35 countries.

In the late 1970s, US- and Canadian-based entrepreneurs who defined their businesses with the producers at heart began to meet regularly, exchange ideas, and network. This informal group would evolve into the Fair Trade Federation and formally incorporate in 1994. In 1989, the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) was founded as a global network of committed fair trade organizations, aiming to improve the livelihoods of disadvantaged people through trade and to provide a forum for the exchange of information and ideas.

In 1988, as world coffee prices began to sharply decline, a Dutch NGO, Solidaridad, created the first fair trade certification initiative. Named after a best-selling 19th century book, the Max Havelaar label initially applied only to coffee in the Netherlands, but similar labeling initiatives grew up independently across Europe within a few years. In 1997, these organizations created Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), an umbrella organization which sets the fair trade certification standards and supports, inspects, and certifies disadvantaged farmers. In 1999, FLO affiliates TransFair USA and TransFair Canada opened in North America.

Since 2000, fair trade sales and consumer awareness have increased tremendously, as the range of fair trade products has also expanded. From the early days of lace and home décor, handmade items now include clothing, sports equipment, toys, and other items. From its initial focus on coffee, fair trade product certification has expanded to tea, chocolate, sugar, vanilla, fruit, wine, and much more. In 2002, the first World Fair Trade Day was celebrated to heighten consumer awareness and to strengthen connections among fair traders and interested citizens around the globe. In 2006, IFAT reported that total fair trade sales topped $2.6 billion.

From its early days in Pennsylvania, fair trade continues to move forward across the globe, because of the efforts of consumers, entrepreneurs, non-governmental organizations, and other communities.

I have listed, below, just a few of the ways 'Fair Trade' helps many of the more vulnerable groups in the world improve their lives.
For heaps more information please click on the banner at the top and bottom of this page.

Creative Alternatives trains individual artisans in Western Kenya in the art of making crafts from readily available and environmentally sound materials. Water hyacinth—a weed that is clogging Lake Victoria—, tin sheets of misprinted bottle caps, recycled wire, tin cans, and discarded phone cards, all find new lives as the artisans of Creative Alternatives create greeting cards, ornaments, jewelry, and functional products, which they sell to provide a sustainable livelihood for their families. Operating under the auspices of Fair Trade, Creative Alternatives ensures the craftspeople with whom it works are paid a fair price for the products they produce.

In Zimbabwe, the simplest task is complex with hyperinflation and fuel rationing, yet craftspeople in Harare manage to produce colorful tin animals and insects out of recycled cans, steel wire and beads and Mbiras, also called finger pianos. This type of art is often referred to as slum art as the artisans work independently in their homes, which are often located in the slums.
To help bring these unique items to western markets, Murenga Arts and Crafts coordinates the work and ensures that Fair Trade practices are in place and payments are made so the artisans can experience a sustainable livelihood in the midst of an unpredictable economy.

Fundacion Solidaridad began in 1974 as a part of the Cooperation Committee for Peace in Chile, which supported the production and sale of handicrafts made by political prisoners detained in prisons and detention camps. By 1976, the organization was supporting hundreds of community groups from the poorest areas of Santiago, including womens organizations, youth groups, indigenous groups, young artists with learning disabilities, and family microbusinesses. New and original handicrafts were invented as a result of the ingenuity and creativity of the local people, many of them made from recycled waste products. By increasing earnings, market insertion and social participation, the Fundacion helps position artisans to overcome poverty and improve their quality of life by producing handicrafts and non-industrial objects in autonomous workshops and microbusinesses.

Caribbean Craft was founded in 1990 by a multinational group of young entrepreneurs,—formerly known as Drexco—it promotes employment in Haiti by training unskilled - but often highly gifted - craftspeople, and by assisting the independent artisans through the introduction of new designs and new market outlets. Unemployment in Haiti, the poorest country of the American hemisphere, is variously estimated at between 60 and 80%.
The organization has gone through rough times during the past years, marked by political troubles and economic difficulties including a 3-year long embargo on all Haitian exports. Drexco saw in 1997 its premises totally ransacked and then destroyed during gang violence. Relocated in a higher-security industrial park, the organization currently employs 400 artisans either as salaried employees or outside contractors, with roughly equal numbers of men and women.
Caribbean Craft’s specialty is the brightly colored, artistically hand-painted home décor objects, which can be purely decorative, such as wall hangings , or consist of objects useful in the home, like switch plates and magnets. The natural artistic talents of the Haitians are well known, and many of these hand-painted pieces are truly works of art.

Comunidad Wiñay has been operating since 1988,-- a collective of producer associations in Cochabamba, Bolivia -- it provides employment for women in the community and education for their children. In addition to paying sustainable wages and offering a safe working environment, the organization operates a daycare, which provides health care, education, and meals for the children of its employees.

ThaiCraft Works with over 60 artisan groups of diverse backgrounds and cultures from all regions of Thailand and generates a fair income for village artisans while keeping alive craft traditions creating thousands of fine hand-crafted products, including jewellery, clothing, fabrics, household items, basketry, decorations, stationery, musical instruments, learning games and more.
Some groups focus on, or include, people with special needs.
Some others face social, political or environmental difficulties. The rest include village cooperatives, slum projects, and small community workshops. All partners know about and are expected to follow Fair Trade practices and keep to internationally recognised standards of working behaviour and responsibility.