Much has been made of this German study, at least by Fair Trade critics, and it has attracted a fair bit of press too. Unfortunately, despite only being nine pages long, it has too often been misrepresented by those seeking to discredit Fair Trade. This just doesn’t seem fair because the study appears to have been conducted thoughtfully by researchers at the University of Hohenheim and they do provide some interesting findings.
Certain criticisms of Fair Trade periodically rear their heads, and I recently received an email from someone who'd attended a Fair Trade debate in Edmonton where some of these very criticisms were brought up.
Below is some of the response I sent her in case it's helpful for people who are unsure how to respond to these criticisms, and so anyone who believes there's something to them has a platform to elaborate further. Not surprisingly, neither the criticisms nor my responses go into great detail here. The bits in bold are what were sent to me, presumably a quick summary of the points made at the debate.
Ce qu’on apprend très vite dans le commerce équitable, c’est qu’il n’existe pas vraiment une définition qui permettrait de rendre compte de ce que tout le monde entend par là, ni une vision unique qui résumerait ce qu’on voudrait en faire.
Puisque tout le monde veut contribuer ses propres idées, nous avons pensé qu’il serait intéressant de démocratiser notre façon de faire. Nous voulions créer des moyens pour les gens de poser des questions, de connaître différents points de vue, de faire connaître les leurs et de débattre de toutes sortes d’idées dans un bain où les bonnes surnageront et les mauvaises couleront.
Something you learn pretty quickly in Fair Trade is that there isn't really one definition that covers how everyone understands it, nor is there a single vision that sums up where everyone wants it to go.
Since we all bring our own ideas to the table, we thought it might be interesting to democratize things a bit. We wanted to create ways for people to ask questions, be exposed to different points-of-view, share their own, and generally discuss different ideas, so the good ones rise to the top and the bad ones sink to the bottom.
