-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Wishing all Goanetters | | a Prosperous | | and | | Happy New Year - 2006 | | Goanet - http://www.goanet.org | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.goanet.org/post.php?name=News&list=goanet&info=2006-January&post_id=036742&POSTNUKESID=df21295ba8984e7992361bacd60faa3d
> Fred/Kalpana, > Could you please define "fair trade" for me in the > context of a free enterprise society? Thanks. -- Mario Gouveia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_trade The fair trade movement, also known as the trade justice movement, promotes international labour, environment and social standards for the production of traded goods and services. The movement focuses in particular on exports from the Third and Second Worlds to the First World. Standards may be voluntarily adhered to by importing firms, or enforced by governments through a combination of employment and commercial law. Proposed and practiced fair trade policies vary widely, ranging from the commonly adhered to prohibition of goods made using slave labour to minimum price support schemes such as those for coffee in the 1980s. Non-governmental organizations also play a role in promoting fair trade standards by serving as independent monitors of compliance with fairtrade labelling requirements. Implicit (and often explicit) in these approaches is a criticism of the current organisation of international trade as being "unfair". When developing countries export to rich country markets, they face tariff barriers that can be as much as four times higher than those encountered by rich countries. Poverty advocates claim that those barriers cost poor countries $100bn a year - twice as much as they receive in aid.[1] Advocates of fair trade practices also hold that the fluctuation of commodity prices does not guarantee a living wage for many producers in developing countries, forcing many into crippling debt.[2] Market prices may not properly reflect the true costs associated with producing the product due to economic externalities such as environmental and social costs. Although critics of so-called fairer trading practices charge that proposals for reform simply amount to protectionism, campaigners maintain that it is rich countries such as the United States and the European Union which operate expansive programmes that subsidise their domestic producers.... The Federation of European Green Parties is, unlike most of its counterparts outside Europe, strongly represented in the European Parliament and is firmly in the fair trade camp. Caroline Lucas, a British Green MEP, argues that " ... many developing countries called for a study to examine the effects of tariff reductions on local industries and jobs, before being required to open their markets further. Local industries, they say, have already collapsed in most African and least developed countries as a result of previous tariff cuts....The choice is not between global trade rules and chaos: rather, it is between trade rules that undermine sustainability and favour the rich, and trade rules that support sustainability and equity." A major focus for the Greens is land reform that respects natural ecologies and traditional cultures, while other groups focus more clearly on equity. The World Bank has taken a positive stance on fair trade. According to the Bank comments in their 2003 study of sustainable coffee markets, sustainable coffees (both fair trade and organic) "can provide such benefits as improved natural resource management; fewer agrochemicals used in production, which decreases costs and health risks; and increased use of rural labour, which provides more jobs for those in desperate need." It should be noted that the definition of fair trade here does not involve government-mandated additional taxes or generic foreign aid. The European Commission stated in 2002 that they will support fair trade plans in the private sector. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Goa - 2005 Santosh Trophy Champions | | | | Support Soccer Activities at the grassroots in our villages | | Vacationing in Goa this year-end - Carry and distribute Soccer Balls | --------------------------------------------------------------------------
