Fairtrade products & towns

Fairtrade is one, perhaps the best known in the UK, fair trade certification scheme that aims to give developing countries producers “a better deal”. Fair trade in this sense is one aspect of campaigns for fairer international trade rules – or ‘trade justice’ – such as the Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign. For more on ‘trade justice’ in general, see part I of Library Research paper 06/43 on the WTO Doha ‘Development’ Round of trade talks. An analysis of the impact of fair trade on producers, consumers and traders is not given here. However, an analysis can be found in Chapter 4 of the International Development Select Committee’s 2007 Report: Fair Trade and Development This note outlines what ‘Fairtrade’ means, how products are certified, UK sales over recent years (Ã?£493 million in 2007), UK Government support, procurement issues, and the ‘Fairtrade Town’ concept. This update comes at the start of Fairtrade Fortnight 2008 which runs from 25 February to 9 March.