Talk:Fair trade debate

message: Both the Cato institute and the Economist exist to support FREE Trade ideas.  The economist's founding purpose was this.  Given that Free trade and Fair trade are in direct opposition to each other, the Economist has always been against it even if it wasn't important enough for them to talk about until recently. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Drewwiki (talk • contribs) 16:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see that Free and Fair Trade are in direct opposition. Rather, they seem to be two approaches to a similar goal, particularly when applied to poor nations. Free Trade seeks to destroy tariffs and ridiculous domestic subsidies in the rich nations so that surpluses aren't dumped on poor nations, while Fair Trade seeks to tap into rich nation charitable demand by artificially keeping label prices high when market dumping forces them unsustainably low. If both sides think that the other is the enemy (especially like the extremism of WTO protesters), then it detracts from the real long-term solutions to inefficient markets. 99.153.47.186 (talk) 03:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding of the Cato Institue and removing "recently" of The Economist 

message: Response: The Fairtrade Foundation counters the price distortion argument by claiming that fair trade does not ‘fix prices’. It rather has a minimum floor price that ensures farmers can meet the costs of sustainable production should market prices fall below this level. The minimum price is not a fixed price but the starting point for a market-based price negotiation. Many fair trade growers routinely earn more than this for the quality, type of coffee bean (or other product) or the particular origin they offer. The minimum price mechanism provides the most vulnerable people in the supply chain the security to meet their basic costs in time of crisis. Effectively, it provides a safety net should markets fall below a level considered necessary for farmers to earn back the costs of sustainable production.[6]  criticism claims price floor is bad, this response does not address that claim
Moreoever, the fair trade minimum price only applies if the market price is lower than this. When market prices exceed the minimum price, traders must negotiate on the basis of market prices, not fair trade minimums.[7]criticism only applies to artificially high prices when activated by the price floor, again this response does not address the criticism
Several academics, including Hayes[8], Becchetti and Rosati[9], also identify two other counterarguments to this criticism.
First, in many cases the exchange between producers and intermediaries does not occur in a competitive framework.[9] In such case the market price is a distortion because it does not reflect the productivity of producers but their lower market power.[10] Unknown what is meant by competitive framework, response here is unclear
Second, the price distortion argument does not take into account the principles of product differentiation. Coffee, for example, cannot be compared to other commodities such as oil: there is not one single type of coffee but instead many different brands that are differentiated from one another in terms of quality, blends, packaging, and now also "social responsibility" features.Not a good response. Product differentiation allows consumers to choose alternatives if the price of one commodity becomes too high 
Consumer demand and taste defines what different market prices are acceptable for each of these products.[9] In this sense, fair trade can be considered as a market-driven innovation in the food industry that creates a new range of products for which a growing segment of consumers are willing to pay more based on environmental and social responsibility claims.[9] Only true if Fair trade was voluntary not imposed by government policy, also not a very good counterargument. Sounds like OR.
And finally, beyond these elements, it is also important to also take into account all the other non-price related potential benefits of the fair trade value chain in terms of technical assistance, democratization of markets through increasing consumer power, crop diversification programs, etc.[9] If this is going to be reasoned then it is only fair for the critics to claim all the unrealized losses from engaging in fair trade, ie, resources being diverted to a lower valued use resulting in reduction of wealth for society.
Basically, someone needs to address the criticism that Fair Frade, which is a price floor, is the potential (although obviously now realized) artificial increase in a price of a good, and as such results in an oversupply of the good relative to the demand.
Agreed, neither one of these responces address the issue at hand, that price floors create overproduction which is harmful to the farmers in the long run because of the downward pressure it would apply to the free market price, eventually causing a 'correction' when the 2 become to out of step, devistating the industry as well as discouraging farmers from producing and innovating means of productions of other goods.   By not addressing these issues it confuses the argument to the reader.  Perhaps a proper solution would be to further emphasize these critisism in the point then continue the validity of keeping the responses a part of the counter point.  TylerSontag (talk) 13:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad responses

message: Meet Toni Shina from the Cape Town-based The Backpack, one of the most recent businesses to be certified as a Fair Trade member. She said: 
“Fair Trade Tourism South Africa recognises our commitment to uplifting our staff and community, and our utilisation of local service providers. 
"As a business we also have a strong and positive attitude to working with and supporting staff who are affected by HIV and Aids and we abide strongly with required labour and legal standards.” 
Successful companies - from upmarket game lodges to adventure specialists - are now members of the initiative which promotes the fair trade businesses to tour operators and agents. The DFID grant was used to develop the assessment process, training of independent assessors to monitor compliance with the rules and development of the fair trade tourism website .
In a recent survey of the local tourism industry, half recognised the Fair Trade Tourism South Africa brand, demonstrating the impact that this initiative has already achieved. 
While the certification is currently only available for South African tourism businesses, the standards and assessment tools developed are clearly relevant to the global tourism industry, which in 2005 contributed around 10.6 per cent to global Gross Domestic Product (according to the World Travel and Tourism Council).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.249.48.115 (talk) 16:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Case studys 

message: The ASI report stated that only 10% of the increased fair trade prices actually reach farmers.  The other 90% goes to the retailers and supply chain agents.  There is a criticism which is simply that if you look purely at the results of fair trade, what it is is a mechanism to increase retail profits.  People shell out an extra dollar or two for a fair trade coffee or whatever - and the retailer and supply agents take almost all of that money - in fact, they could hardly take more without fair trade actually passing on no money at all to the farmers and so being *absolutely* a fake.  No wonder Starbucks et al are so enthusisatic about fair trade.  Toby Douglass (talk) 10:31, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Are completely the numbers make it look like little more than a feel good for consumers and a marketing gimmick for retailers who end up selling a "good feeling".  It is a drop in the bucket which gives the appearance of change thus preventing any real change to occur.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Profit Criticism 

message: The response does not address the criticism, in that it only talks about localised broader effects, and not the criticism of it disadvantaging african producers. The criticism in fact acknowledges that local/regional culture changes are achievable, but this does not address the criticism that it may lower the price for African producers etc. This rebuttall needs to be fleshed out, or removed? 121.73.149.66 (talk) 10:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Impact on conventional producers argument 

message: I have put in the Agricultural Economics and Marketing perspective because this is the discipline that has always covered all aspects from production, not least in the Third World, to the supermarket shelf. It has an enormous body of theory and practical experience. It is fully referenced.AidWorker (talk) 16:31, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agricultural Economics and Marketing Perspective 

message: I would like to put the Economist criticism under another heading. There are others to go under the same heading.
The supposed response does not address these particular criticisms, and I would remove. OK?
Criticism: As The Economist magazine pointed out in its December 7, 2006 issue, “another objection to Fairtrade is that certification is predicated on political assumptions about the best way to organise labour. In particular, for some commodities (including coffee) certification is available only to co-operatives of small producers, who are deemed to be most likely to give workers a fair deal when deciding how to spend the Fairtrade premium. Coffee plantations or large family firms cannot be certified.
Response: On the other hand, fair trade supporters, such as Oxford University professor Alex Nicholls, argue that the program was created in the first place to address market failures affecting small farmers' organizations. As opposed to plantations for example, perfect market information, perfect access to markets and credit, and the ability to switch production techniques and outputs in response to market information are fundamental assumptions which are fallacious in the context of small farmers' organizations in the developing world.[27] Fair trade is seen as an attempt to address these market failures by providing to the most in need a stable price for their crop, business support, access to premium Northern markets and better general trading conditions.
AidWorker (talk) 17:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope of  fair trade debate 

message: As a guest, I don't feel confident to make any changes myself, but could someone look at the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fairtrade_Certification_Mark ? There is a 2500 word section on criticism of fair trade, quite poorly written and difficult to follow. It is heavily referenced, but seems to contain a lot of highly biased, heavily over stated, or un-supported claims.
Also, it seems to me that the article about the mark itself is no place for large section on criticisms of fair trade, surely that should go here or the main fair trade article, and the article on the mark should be kept to a history of the mark, and any controversies surrounding the mark itself, not fair trade in general.
I'd recommend that the entire criticism section be deleted, and any information that is relevant and supported be moved into this article. Does that sound reasonable?  
I've just looked more clearly at this article, and realised that the criticism section in the article I refered to is just a copy/paste of this article, only without any formatting. I'm deleting it. Will comment in the talk page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fairtrade_Certification_Mark as well. If this is not the correct thing to do, please let me know.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.250.206 (talk) 23:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger or deletion of information in International Fairtrade Certification Mark Article 

message: I was working on coffee in Vietnam in 1989. The statements ascribed to Smith are false. There had been a massive increase in production in the previous ten years. The prices paid were very high indeed, and farmers and government believed them to be subsidized. Preferential credit and input subsidies are part of the price package. And yes the Vietnamese state did set prices (partly by having different exchange rates for favoured crops.) Peter@Bowbrick.eu  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.100.136 (talk) 14:20, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some corrections 

message: What is this nonsense about this page being an essay or personal reflection? This page contains concise summaries of the main issues in the fair trade debate, fully referenced - which is what an encyclopaedia is supposed to do. There are a lot of other pages that do require root and branch rewriting to get rid of false, unreferenced, unverifiable statements and thousands of words of irrelevant waffle. Why not start on those? For example, while someone has made a start on the Fair trade page - thank you someone for major input on this - there remain weeks or months of hard work to make it into an acceptable encyclopaedia entry.AidWorker (talk) 16:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Essay or personal reflection 

message: I've just reformatted some of the references to be consistent with Wikipedia standards. Does anyone object to pulling apart some of the huge ref blocks (e.g., this) and using ref names to make things easier? Me, Myself & I (talk) 06:31, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference formatting 

message: I tried to make the language clearer in the first few sections, though there's a lot I still find unclear about this article that I don't know how to fix because I don't know a lot about Fairtrade (that's why I wanted to read the article!)
#"Little money reaches the developing world" - What is the "kickback" being mentioned? Is it a cash payment or a change in quality required? 
#"Less money reaches farmers"
## It says "over the years" - Over what years? Is 18%-37% the total range, some sort of confidence interval, or something else entirely?
## Bulleted list item
##"No evidence that Fairtrade farmers get higher prices on average" - I added a "citation needed" since we'd need an expert in the field to verify that they have definitely checked all available sources and found nothing.
##The last sentence read "The claim that Fairtrade guarantees a ‘fair price’ for the producer is not supported by the evidence and although it is possible that Fair Trade may do so on occasions, there is no reason to believe that this is normal." This contains no citations and appears to just be a summary of the previous sentences.
#"Lack of Evidence and Impact".
##"Capturing such socially constructed benefit" - Does this refer to benefits to the agency and perspective of non-fairtrade farmers, or to other factors, including "confidence in business relationships"?
##"A major problem is that many people discussing Fairtrade fail to understand the difference" - This reads really confrontationally, so I changed it to something that sounds a little less like "You're stupid for not recognizing this difference".
##When it says "(which accept studies that would not be acceptable to the World Bank etc.)", is this pointing out that the standards to be considered an "impact study" are still relatively lax? That is, it's not a strict criteria, it's not strict enough for the world bank, but few studies can even match these criteria. For that matter, are the "etc." and "for instance" redundant?
Sam Jaques (talk) 06:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unclear Language 

message: I reverted the previous move because enough of the article and its sources either focus on free trade in general or do not seem to make a distinction either due to conflating the two or inconsistent capitalisation. 93 (talk) 10:10, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting move, article scope