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About Fair Trade

What is Fair Trade?
Fair Trade Criteria
Why Fair Trade?
What Fair Trade Products are Available
How to Identify Fair Trade Products
Who Benefits from Fair Trade?
Frequently Asked Questions
Fair Trade Resources

Fair Trade means an equitable and fair partnership between marketers in North America and producers in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other parts of the world. A fair trade partnership works to provide low-income artisans and farmers with a living wage for their work.

Source: Fair Trade Federation

Paying a fair wage in the local context
Offering employees opportunities for advancement
Engaging in environmentally sustainable practices
Being open to public accountability
Building long-term trade relationships
Providing healthy and safe working conditions within the local context
Providing financial and technical assistance to producers whenever possible
Ensuring that there is no abuse of child labor

Source: Fair Trade Federation

Our consumer spending choices affect people's lives around the world. The products we enjoy are often made in conditions that harm workers, communities and the environment. But increasingly consumers are demanding more humane, more environmentally sensitive products.

In today's world economy, where profits rule and small-scale producers are left out of the bargaining process, farmers, craft producers, and other workers are often left without resources or hope for their future. Fair Trade helps exploited producers escape from this cycle and gives them a way to maintain their traditional lifestyles with dignity.

Fair Trade encompasses a range of goods, from agricultural products from the global South like coffee, chocolate, tea, and bananas, to handcrafts like clothing, household items, and decorative arts.

How to Identify Fair Trade Products

Fair Trade products can be identified by the "Fair Trade Certified" label or the Fair Trade Federation logo on a product. The "Fair Trade Certified" system involves non-profit organizations in 17 different countries, all affiliated with Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International. In the USA, TransFair USA places the "Fair Trade Certified" label on coffee, cocoa, tea, bananas and other fruits. This label is product-specific, meaning that its presence on one product doesn't mean that all of the companies products are Fair Trade. The Fair Trade Federation is an association of businesses that follow fair trade principles across the board, so its presence on a product DOES mean that a company supports the highest level of commitment to fair trade -100%.

Who Benefits from Fair Trade?
The Fair Trade system benefits over 800,000 farmers organized into cooperatives and unions in 48 countries. Fair Trade has helped farmers provide for their families' basic needs and invest in community development. However, these farmers are still selling most of their crop outside of the Fair Trade system because not enough companies are buying at Fair Trade prices.

To learn more about some of the producers of the products we carry, please visit our Producer Section

Frequently Asked Questions
Visit our the Fair Trade section of our Frequently Asked Questions page for a complete list of answers to your toughest questions about Fair Trade.

Global Exchange Implements the
principles of socially and economically
responsible business by operating
according to Fair Trade Criteria.