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Fairtrade

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Submitted By nadjab5588
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Fairtrade and the impact on farmers’ lives

Abstract
Fairtrade is an organisation with the aim of improving the livelihoods of farmers from developing countries in order to support equality among people. The business is however often in the critique for procedures that are either not helpful for their farmers or even harm the market as a whole. This paper aims at analysing the Fairtrade standards as well as evidence from the literature with regard to the actual impact of the system. The results show that the standards set by Fairtrade are actually fair for their farmers, however a lack of transparency and traceability hinders their proper implementation. Furthermore, Fairtrade standards appear to have even negative effects on farmers that are not part of their organisation caused by rough price competitions as well as on the society as a whole since it hinders an autonomous development of the poor nations.

Key Words: Fair Trade, Standards, Developing countries, Livelihood

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Introduction

The rising globalization has brought a lot of opportunities to developing countries since their agricultural products can now easily be purchased from all over the world. Due to poor economic, social and political conditions, their producers are however often underpaid and treated badly, while major corporations make the most profit out of it. While moral concerns about the origin of products are arising more and more within the last centuries in the western world, the willingness to pay extra for good worker treatment is of high interest for international trade. With the aim to support the poorest, Fairtrade international has been established in the 1980ies. Their idea is to offer producers a better deal and improved terms of trade by building partnerships between producers in developing countries and consumers in developed countries. The developing

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