Fair Trade

Once known as a sweet indulgence for children on Halloween and for sweethearts on Valentine's Day, in recent years chocolate has become a high-end (and year-round) delicacy with more and more exotic chocolates turning up on menus and in shops everywhere. But as giant chocolate makers and artisan chocolatiers alike take chocolate in sumptuous new directions to meet the demand of ever more discerning consumers, the dark history of this much-loved confection remains largely unknown. Bitter Chocolate traces the fascinating origins of chocolate from the banquet table of Montezuma's sixteenth-century Aztec court to the bustling factories of Hershey, Cadbury, and Mars today.

Stamped on products from coffee to handicrafts, the term "fair trade" has quickly become one of today's most seductive consumer buzzwords. Purportedly created through fair labor practices, or in ways that are environmentally sustainable, fair-trade products give buyers peace of mind in knowing that, in theory, how they shop can help make the world a better place. Buying into Fair Trade turns the spotlight onto this growing trend, exploring how fair-trade shoppers think about their own altruism within an increasingly global economy.

We are told that simply by sipping our morning cup of organic, fair-trade coffee we are encouraging environmentally friendly agricultural methods, community development, fair prices, and shortened commodity chains. But what is the reality for producers, intermediaries, and consumers? This ethnographic analysis of fair-trade coffee analyzes the collective action and combined efforts of fair-trade network participants to construct a new economic reality. Focusing on La Voz Que Clama en el Desierto--a cooperative in San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala--and its relationships with coffee roasters, importers, and certifiers in the United States, Coffee and Communityargues that while fair trade does benefit small coffee-farming communities, it is more flawed than advocates and scholars have acknowledged. However, through detailed ethnographic fieldwork with the farmers and by following the product, fair trade can be understood and modified to be more equitable.

Written for high school or beginning undergraduate students, this four-volume reference valiantly attempts to provide a historical framework for the perhaps overly broad concept of world trade.

Illuminates the contradictions that emerge within conscious capitalism initiatives that are designed to empower women.

Fair Food is an enlightening and inspiring guide to changing not only what we eat, but how food is grown, packaged, delivered, marketed, and sold. Oran B. Hesterman shows how our system's dysfunctions are unintended consequences of our emphasis on efficiency, centralization, higher yields, profit, and convenience--and defines the new principles, as well as the concrete steps, necessary to restructuring it. Along the way, he introduces people and organizations across the country who are already doingthis work in a number of creative ways, from bringing fresh food to inner cities to fighting for farm workers' rights to putting cows back on the pastures where they belong. He provides a wealth of practical information for readers who want to get more involved.

What's wrong with buying regular coffee? Does Fair Trade necessarily mean ethical trade? What impact can consumers have on global economics? Fair Trade- A Beginner's Guide reveals why Fair Trade means more than just bananas, coffee, and chocolate. Author and activist Jacqueline DeCarlo explains the principles behind Fair Trade and its development into a powerful economic tool. Packed with inspiring ways to make a difference, this book will encourage readers of all backgrounds to help end poverty,environmental destruction, and human exploitation.

Fair trade is intended to help producers in developing countries achieve better working and trading conditions while maintaining certain environmental standards. This is achieved through arrangements with distributors around the world. With the influx of fair trade goods on grocery store shelves and restaurant menus, one would assume an overall positive trend in trade conditions is occurring. However, numerous concerns continue to surround fair trade, as readers will learn. They will consider whether it benefits all developing countries and markets equally, and analyze the extent to which it is effective at protecting the environment. They will develop intelligent opinions on which conditions will make trade as fair as possible.

Through the use of lush, light-filled landscapes, intimate and intriguing portraits, and delicately detailed stories, this riveting and visually stunning work carries us across continents and around the globe to understand and comprehend the complexities of the human journey that encompasses fair trade. A captivating storyteller with a deft eye for detail, author-photographer Éric St-Pierre has crafted a book that makes the story of fair trade, its implications and its limitations, clear to us. We learn about production methods, the effect fair trade has on peoples' lives, and the advantages and challenges of a trade option based on dialogue, transparency, and respect. St-Pierre introduces the reader to the most common fair trade products -- handicrafts, coffee, and cocoa, as well as the lesser known ones -- shea butter, quinoa, and guarana. Along the way, we discover how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

Fair Trade is at a crucial moment in its evolution from alternative trading mechanism to mainstream economic model. This timely and thoughtful book looks at the strategic future for Fair Trade. Each chapter spearheads a key area of Fair Trade thinking and theory and the political, legal and economic context of Fair Trade is given careful scrutiny. Difficult questions are tackled such as `What is the role and value of corporate social responsibility?' and `What is the brand meaning of Fair Trade?'

As trade and production have increasingly crossed international boundaries, private bodies and governments alike have sought new ways to regulate labour standards and advance goals of fairness and social justice. Governments are harnessing social and market forces to advance corporate accountability, while private bodies are employing techniques drawn from command and control regulation to shape the behaviour of business. This collection brings together the research and reflections of a diverse international mix of academics, activists and practitioners in the fields of fair trade and corporate accountability, representing perspectives from both the industrialized and developing worlds.

The authors critically evaluate the fair trade movement's role in pursuing a more just and environmentally sustainable society. Using fair trade as a case study of the shift toward non-state forms of governance, they focus on its role not only as a regulatory tool, but as a catalyst for broader social and political transformation.

The markets for organic and fair trade certified commodities are growing rapidly, with environmentally sound and more equitable certification systems likely to offer benefits for both small-scale farmers and society at large. Despite much debate about their contribution to sustainability, there has been little scientific analysis, so it is vital to assess if it is technically and economically feasible to meet growing consumer demands regarding food safety, quality and ethics through smallholder and marginal producers. Overall, there is a need to explore the potential of these certification systems as emerging areas in research and development cooperation. This book includes: - Worldwide case studies (from the supply side in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and from the demand side in Europe and North America) to put theory into practice.

By 2008, total Fair Trade purchases in the developed world reached nearly $3 billion, a five-fold increase in four years. Consumers pay a fair price for Fair Trade items, which are meant to generate greater earnings for family farmers, cover the costs of production, and support socially just and environmentally sound practices. Yet constrained by existing markets and the entities that dominate them, Fair Trade often delivers material improvements for producers that are much more modest than the profound social transformations the movement claims to support. There has been scant real-world assessment of Fair Trade's effectiveness. Drawing upon fine-grained anthropological studies of a variety of regions and commodity systems including Darjeeling tea, coffee, crafts, and cut flowers, the chapters in Fair Trade and Social Justice represent the first works to use ethnographic case studies to assess whether the Fair Trade Movement is actually achieving its goals.

Fair Trade In CSR Strategy of Global Retailers shows how retailers can improve the success of their fair trade strategy. Using Polish market research, the authors analyze the aggressive and detrimental competition between retailers such as Ikea, and Tesco to emphasize the benefits of CSR strategy for stakeholders and society at large.

Fair Trade has come a long way in the last 20 years. The Fair Trade Revolution celebrates the movement's achievement and takes up the challenge of improving more lives through fair dealing with producers. Fair Trade is now mainstream, with large companies like Cadbury's and supermarkets such as Sainsbury's producing and stocking many Fair Trade products. The authors of this collection, many of whom were responsible for the initial success of Fair Trade, emphasis the importance of ensuring that farmers and other producers remain the main beneficiaries.

Green Food: An A-to-Z Guide lays out the contours of the field of agri-food studies. It draws on scholars working in the fields of political ecology, rural sociology, geography, and environmental studies to paint a picture of the past, present, and future of agriculture and food. It provides readers with a basic understanding of the institutions, practices, and concepts to identify what is and is not a "green" food. Because food is so intimately connected to our daily lives, the food system offers perhaps the most promise to make change in a sustainable direction. What a sustainable and green food system would be like is still an open question.

An in depth look at two decades of a movement that aims to challenge the ethical foundations of the global market. Transnational corporations look for the cheapest suppliers, while the fair trade movement insists on a premium for the producers at the start of the chain. Sally Blundell explores the origins of fair trade and what it is likely to become in the face of growing disparities between the principles and the practice.

The Politics of Fair Trade argues that fair trade is more than just labels on specialty coffee products. Nor is fair trade just protectionism in disguise. Rather, fair trade is opposition to unrestricted trade based on sincere concerns about environmental and labor conditions abroad. Fairtraders are not trying to protect jobs or the economy at home, but do not want to see workers exploited and the environment degraded in their trading partners.

For most of us, our enjoyment of food has fallen victim to the frenetic pace of our lives and to our increasing estrangement, in a complex commercial economy, from the natural processes by which food is grown and produced. Packaged, artificial, and unhealthful, fast food is only the most dramatic example of the degradation of food in our lives, and of the deeper threats to our cultural, political, and environmental well-being. In 1986, Carlo Petrini decided to resist the steady march of fast food and all that it represents when he organized a protest against the building of a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Armed with bowls of penne, Petrini and his supporters spawned a phenomenon. Three years later Petrini founded the International Slow Food Movement, renouncing not only fast food but also the overall pace of the "fast life." Issuing a manifesto, the Movement called for the safeguarding of local economies, the preservation of indigenous gastronomic traditions, and the creation of a new kind of ecologically aware consumerism committed to sustainability. On a practical level, it advocates a return to traditional recipes, locally grown foods and wines, and eating as a social event.

By now most of us are aware of the threats looming in the food world. The best-selling "Fast Food Nation" and other recent books have alerted us to such dangers as genetically modified organisms, food-borne diseases, and industrial farming. Now it is time for answers, and "Slow Food Nation" steps up to the challenge. Here the charismatic leader of the Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini, outlines many different routes by which we may take back control of our food. The three central principles of the Slow Food plan are these: food must be sustainably produced in ways that are sensitive to the environment, those who produce the food must be fairly treated, and the food must be healthful and delicious.