Fairtrade products are heavily promoted in my school’s canteen, but Fairtrade is not without it’s faults.
For example:
- Most of the farmers helped by Fairtrade are in Mexico (HDI: 0.854), a relatively well developed country, rather than in developing countries like Ethiopia (HDI: 0.414) or Côte d’Ivoire (HDI: 0.484).
- Fairtrade helps landowners, not their workers. Fairtrade coffee farms are not allowed to employ workers full-time, forcing rural poor into unstable short-term contracts that do not guarantee an income.
Further Reading: