There’s a very, very interesting article on Le Monde Diplomatique about Max Havelaar and the development of fair trade.
It’s called “Max Havelaar ou les ambiguïtés du commerce équitable”. Unfortunately it’s only available in French, if I’ve got time I’ll translate bits of it into English.
Have you ever noticed that now a majority of coffee and tea you find at your supermarket are labeled “Fair Trade” and have the Max Havelaar logo on it? It’s literally exploded during the last five years.
Have you ever wondered why, with so many fair trade products now being sold, the situation of poor peasants in developing countries hasn’t improved significantly?
What do you think of McDonald’s or Starbucks, two companies that have dubious social practices, selling fair trade coffee?
If you’ve asked yourselves these questions, then this article is for you.
The article is quoting the CEO of Leclerc, one of the biggest supermarket chains in France:
Fair trade is just an emerging market segment. With bigger volumes, producers will be able to squeeze their production costs, thus allowing us to increase our margins.
This is surprisingly eloquent, especially coming from this CEO and that sort of confirms the feeling I’ve got when I’m in the coffee/tea alley at the supermarket: spurred by “charity coffee” businessmen, fair trade has quickly become the trade of fair…
