People's Recovery, Empowerment and
Development Assistance Foundation, Inc.

Unfair trade and corruption is the root of all poverty hunger and suffering.

That’s why we have to change the unjust trading system. Nowhere is the greed and selfishness of some nations more obvious than in the way they protect their own agricultural industries and block products of the developing nations from entering their markets.

The imposition of stringent standards by rich countries and even some ‘fair trade’ labeling and certification companies can block the products from the poorest producers and end up helping the rich multinational corporations.

‘Fair Trade’ has become such a powerful selling point that the concept itself is a commodity and is being exploited for profit. To get a certification that your product is fairly traded the producer has to pay a big fee and a percentage of all sales to the labeling company. When the fair trade movement first started, the importing and distribution organisations in the developed countries opened the door to the poor and set basic criteria that would made it possible for the poor to benefit most.

When these dedicated justice-loving organisations made ‘fair trade’ an ethical practice and a popular selling point the labeling and certification companies then appeared and commercialised the fair trade idea. They made it into a logo and sold it to companies willing to pay for it. It’s now big business. Even multinational corporations of questionable practices want the fair trade logo on their products to cover up their tarnished images.

Corporations like Nestle with its coffee and the corporations behind Chiquito bananas have been given the logo for a single product and they crow to the world that they are a ‘fair trade’ company. Are the rest of their products fair trade? Would they ever be allowed to join the distinguished and most trusted fair trade organisation of all the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT)? I think not.

Labeling companies are not interested in certifying small producer groups because they sell so little. So the most needy are excluded from the label and the market.

One labeling company in the UK persuaded a supermarket chain to remove Philippine dried fruit products from the ‘fair trade’ shelves because they did not have their logo. They contacted that Philippine company and asked that they apply and pay to get the logo. This smacks of extortion.

This company has suffered cancelled orders and huge losses; development programmes for Filipino children and farmers have been damaged.

But Asian fair trade organiztions are fighting back, with plans to set up their own labeling companies.

To pursue profit in the guise of virtue must be the most insidious forms of unfair trading. [End]