Evaluating the Success of Fair Trade Initiatives Globally

This essay critically examines the success of fair-trade initiatives in the developing world, evaluating their impact and sustainability. The essay begins with a general overview of fair trade, defining its principles and objectives. It then delves into the success rates of these initiatives, providing statistics on the market share of fair-trade certified products, particularly in sectors like coffee, tea, and cocoa. The essay explores the benefits for farmers and workers, including improved living conditions and access to better trade terms. It discusses marketing strategies employed by fair-trade organizations and analyzes the role of certification and regulatory bodies. The essay further addresses the social movement aspect of fair trade, its aims to challenge existing economic models and promote community development, and the growth of fair-trade organizations in the international market. The essay concludes with an assessment of the overall impact of fair trade on livelihoods and the potential for sustainable global operations, referencing several studies and research papers to support its arguments. References and bibliography are included, providing details of the sources used in the essay.

Running head: SUCCESS OF FAIR-TRADE INITIATIVES
SUCCESS OF FAIR-TRADE INITIATIVES
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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Fair-trade refers to trade that takes place among the companies that are present in the
developing countries as well as the producers in order to ensure the fair payment towards the
concerned producers and companies in the given markets. The implementation of the fair-trade
practices is considered to be beneficial for the incorporation of the sustainability within the given
markets. The fair-trade practices that have been taking place within the given international
markets tend assist the development of the operations and the payment that is extended towards
the concerned producers as well thereby creating a sustainability in the given markets.
The essay opens with a general discussion on the fair-trade and proceeds further to
discuss the success rate of the initiatives of fair trade in the world that is still developing. The
essay further discusses the implications of the fair trade in the near future as well as provide a
few examples of the successful fair-trade initiatives in diverse sectors. The essay further
involves evaluative measures that are important for the development of the fair-trade
initiatives. The essay concludes with a discussion on the sustainability of the operations of
fair-trade in the international markets.
Fair-trade generally refers to the initiatives that are implemented in order to bring
about a proper improvement in the livelihood of the poverty-stricken people residing in the
developing countries. These initiatives generally provide the concerned people with the better
terms as well as providing them with the required assistance so that they might organize
themselves. However, a very small market share belongs to the various products that are fair-
trade certified. It might be stated as an example that the in the year 2009, only 1.8% of the coffee
exports all over the world had been fair-trade certified products (Dragusanu, Giovannucci
&Nunn, 2014). In the sector of coffee exports, the growth in the past decade has been observed
to be rapid. The largest single product in the fair-trade market is coffee. According to the data

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retrieved from monitoring the scope and benefits of Fair-trade (2012), an estimate can be derived
on the number of the workers and the producers of the products that are enlisted in the list of
fair-trade products. The highest number of producers and workers who have been dealing in the
coffee industry is 580000, that in the tea industry is 258100, in the cocoa industry the number of
producers involved is 141800. The seed cotton industry involves 66500 people, the flower and
plants industry involve 37500 people, the cane sugar involves the participation of 37200 people.
The fresh fruit industry and the nut industry involve 18700 and 14300 people respectively. The
fair-trade initiatives are majorly aimed at the improvement of the living conditions of the
workers and the farmers who have been residing in the developing countries. The fair-trade
products that were implemented in the Netherlands are marketed under the label that was
highlighted especially for the purpose of fair-trade. The trade label was named Max Havelaar.
The name was derived from the name of a fictional character who was known to have stood in
favour of the coffee pickers against the exploitation that they had to face in the Dutch colonies.
This settles the fair-trade activities to have an economic sensibility as well as to be sustainable
for the future days.
The activity of fair-trade is considered to be beneficial for the farmers of the
developing countries. The benefits that are faced by the farmers tend to vary from a low range to
a considerable range. A variety of marketing strategies are implemented by the various
organisations that deal in the ethical marketing and fair-trade activities (Ballet & Carimentrand,
2010). A greater number of the marketers practising fair-trade tend to believe that it is necessary
on the part of the sellers to sell the products through the various supermarkets in order to attract a
larger number of clients. This is turn is believed to help the developing economy as well. The
system for marketing both the fair-trade and non-fair-trade coffee variants is the same in the

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countries that majorly consume the products. The firms for the imports, packaging, distributions
and the retail of the products are often observed to be the same (Davies & Crane, 2003). The
virtual companies are maintained by a very few independent brands due to the sole reasons of
costs. In order to receive the status of the certified fair-trade producers, the member farmers of a
cooperative along with the main co-operative should be operational according to certain political
standards that have been imposed by the European authorities. The producer certification
activities, the activities related to inspection and the certification of producing organisations of
almost more than 50 countries based within the territorial boundaries of Latin America, Asia and
Africa are managed by the for-profit end of the organisations. Thus, the usefulness of the success
of the fair-trade initiatives the development might be claimed.
The fair-trade might be considered to be a social movement that is based on providing
encouragement to the community development in those parts of the world that are deprived in
comparison to the other parts of the world. There exist multitude of fair-trade organisations that
aim to redistribute the wealth to the various producer communities from the brand owners of the
North. One of the major aims of the fair-trade organisations refer to the activity of challenging
the existing models of business and economy in order to develop a sustainable shift towards the
social concern and the awareness in the society (Davies & Doherty, 2012). There has been a
huge growth in the number of the fair-trade organisations that have been active within the
international markets. The boost had been observed during the beginning of the 1990s with the
advent of the commodity Fairtrade labelling (Davies & Doherty, 2012). The clients in the
mainstream advanced economies tend to advancing to the situations wherein the fair-trade
activities would be the norm of the business sector.

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The fair-trade activities that are undertaken by the organizations tend to benefit the
organisation with the networking activities. These benefits include the competitive
developments with the help of the virtual integration. This helps the organisations to maintain
their small and flexible nature alongside the market projection. The studies suggest that the fair-
trade activities within the clothing industry have been lacking in the marketing researches that
they have been undergoing (Davies, 2009). The choice, the use and the management of the
partners generally play a great role in attaining the relative success at the leveraging of the
benefits.
The fair trade refers to the institutional arrangement that is aimed in assisting the
producers in the developing countries in achieving better conditions for trade. The members of
the various organisations of fair-trade tend to advocate for the extension of the higher prices to
the exporters as well as develop better standards for the environmental and social standards. The
social enterprises that tend to completely implement the fair-trade practices are known have an
impact on over a million livelihoods inclusive of 74% women (Wang & Chen, 2019). Qiao et al.
(2016) state that the fair-trade activities that are highly focused on the groups of small producers
tend to have affected almost 96570 livelihoods through over 323 fair trade enterprises in which
54% of the positions were held by women employees.
In conclusion it might be stated that the fair-trade activities tend to affect the farmers in
the developing countries of the world. The effect might be observed to vary form a meagre to a
considerable effect. The fair trade is considered to be a global phenomenon by nature. This in
turn leads to the diversification of the motives in the development of the understanding in terms
of the formation of the groups that have been related to the fair-trade.

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References and Bibliography
Ballet, J., & Carimentrand, A. (2010). Fair trade and the depersonalization of ethics. Journal of
Business Ethics, 92(2), 317-330.
Davies, I. A., & Crane, A. (2003). Ethical decision making in fair trade companies. Journal of
Business Ethics, 45(1-2), 79-92.
I.A.Davies, B.Doherty. (2012).Business History: Where now for fair trade?
I.A.Davies. (2009).Alliances and Networks: Creating Success in the UK Fair Trade Market.
J.A.Stigilitz, A.Charlton (2005) Fair Trade For All: How Trade Can Promote Development.
Qiao, Y., Halberg, N., Vaheesan, S., & Scott, S. (2016). Assessing the social and economic
benefits of organic and fair trade tea production for small-scale farmers in Asia: a
comparative case study of China and Sri Lanka. Renewable Agriculture and Food
Systems, 31(3), 246-257.
R.Dragusanu, D.Giovannucci, N.Nunn (2014). the Economics of Fair Trade.
Ruben, R. (2009). Measuring the impact of fair trade on development. Development in Practice
19(6), 777-788.
SOAS (2014). Research finds fair trade fails the poorest workers in Ethiopia and Uganda. SOAS
News. Retrieved from https://www.soas.ac.uk/news/newsitem93228.htm
Wang, E. S. T., & Chen, Y. C. (2019). Effects of perceived justice of fair trade organizations on
consumers’ purchase intention toward fair trade products. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services, 50, 66-72.

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