The fair trade trend, an explanation

Résumé du document

The current functioning of the world economy suffers from more and more blatant imbalance which affects particularly the producers of tropical farm produces, the victims of the agro-industrial politics based essentially on the returns and the profit.

The prices and the conditions of purchase are imposed on them without negotiation and mostly, these cost prices do not cover even production costs. So, according to the United Nations Organization for the Food and the Agriculture, on the 840 million persons who go hungry in 2007, 800 millions are farmers.

The business is indispensable to any company and partly the social link. Nevertheless, his current organization is often made:

Without knowing the producer as knowing the consumer: the producer does not know the destination of his product; the consumer ignores the real origin,

To the detriment of the producer and of the consumer: the most powerful intermediaries (big mark financiers, industrial groups, distributing financial, big bodies, buying groups) impose their rules, their prices, even their products, to the producers as to the consumers.

Extraits

[...] This problem is accentuated at level the way production that is to say that the media have advertised about products of fair trade but not a lot about the reason to buy these products especially producers and their wages, their life, women, children in this trade. So, lack of communication can explain the fall of the selling. A last reason is that for some products, prices are expensive. In fact, we can think that the category of customers must have money to buy products of fair trade. This is a problem because they customers should buy these products but can't on account of their being poor or haven't got enough money to realise this purchase. [...]

[...] The fair trade proposes a new model based on a relation more balanced between the various commercial partners. Supported by the consumers, this business guarantees to the producers of developing countries the purchase of their goods at a "just price" shielded from the market fluctuations. The “just price” it is the price which allows the producers to live with dignity on their work and thus to satisfy their needs and those of their family, the food, the house, the schooling. [...]

[...] That why the selling of these products fell ; because price can appear high. This decline of selling and of consumption set up all form of trade including fair trade. The smallest producers from southern or countries suffer from the weakness of local markets and their abilities of local politic to answer the development issue. The same, miss-regulation to international market, the regulation back, and protection of southern countries interest, small producers on this market by international institution increase their precariousness. [...]

[...] The mass-market retailing is the most developed circuit and represents the most evident competitive advantages with regard to all the distribution networks, but also the highest risks. Its market shares the specialized distribution tends to increase regularly. For these reasons, its must be considered as a circuit to be aimed first and foremost if we want to develop the sales of large-scale fair trade. Coffee: first product distributed in mass-market retailing Thanks to the success of the introduction of fair coffee to most of the European and American distributors, the way was opened to all the certified products of fair trade. [...]

[...] - A piece of information : *which makes it possible for the consumer to carry out a founded and responsible purchase, *which allows the act of purchase to connect the producer to the consumer Fair trade becomes established not only through an economic relation, but also facilitates cultural and social exchanges with the producers, or at least with the countries where they belong to. C - Fair trade goes out of marginality Fair trade gets more and more wide public and numerous initiatives are born : new networks, diversification of the concerned products and development of distribution networks. [...]