“Our fair trade coffee tastes better”: It might, but under what conditions? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Seduced or Sceptical Consumers? Organised Action and the Case of Fair Trade Coffee
Sociological Research Online, 2007
This article brings together research on political consumerism, social movements and markets to analyse the phenomenon of fair trade coffee. It does this to demonstrate the influence of organised consumers in shaping markets, and to show that people are not inevitably individualised and seduced by the power of corporate marketing. The case of fair trade coffee is used because of the pivotal role of coffee in the global economy. 'Organised consumers' are treated as comprised of three inter-connecting, fluid, components: an activist core, responsible for building the campaign and its alternative trade networks; a widely dispersed alliance of civil society and social movement organisations, articulating the connections between trade justice, human rights and wellbeing; and an 'outer edge' of quasi-organised consumers acting as part of a largely imagined group by using economic capital to express cultural and political values. Despite saturated markets, and oligopoly among suppliers in a highly rationalised supply chain, such consumer movements have been instrumental in an emerging new trade paradigm, which has influenced the business and product strategies of trans-national corporations. The creation, and rising sales, of Fair Trade products are evidence of the role of consumers as sceptical actors, challenging consumerism and the ethics of a supply chain which impoverishes coffee farmers. Although the future trajectories of fair trade campaigns and products are uncertain, their growth indicates that people continue to draw on sources of social identity beyond that of 'consumer'.
With Friends Like These: The corporate response to fair trade coffee
Review of Radical Political Economics, 2008
Capitalist agriculture is highly exploitative of both producers and the environment. Fair trade is a movement attempting to mitigate this exploitation, partly by baiting corporate actors into the arena of "ethical production." In the coffee industry, major corporations are responding by discrediting fair trade and branding themselves as ethical. While falling well short of addressing the real demands of the movement, the proliferation of "ethical" labels resulting from this response threatens to destroy fair trade's own ethical brand.
VDM, 2010
This book is intended for all readers interested in a critical assessment of fair trade. How much does fair trade contribute to development? Does consumer awareness make any difference at all? Or are supermarkets selling fair trade coffee just clean-washing their reputation in the fair trade business? These are some of the key questions examined in this book. I start by providing a short description of the coffee market and some of its major trends. I then turn to the origin and structure of the fair trade movement. The pricing scheme of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) is compared to those of other private labeling initiatives. The last part examines benefits generated for participants on the supply and demand side. Revenues accruing to coffee producers in the South and fair trade organizations in the Western world are estimated. Finally, an original empirical strategy is proposed to see whether consumer awareness is making any difference and/or if supermarkets are clean-washing their reputation in the fair trade business. Data from 13 European countries is used in two different econometric models (OLS and treatment regression model).
The Search for Sustainable Markets: The Promise and Failures of Fair Trade
Culture & Agriculture, 2007
Fair trade promises to transform small-scale coffee farming by ensuring a fair price to producers, improving market access for small producers, and creating closer ties between producers and consumers. However, as the fairtrade market has grown from a small social movement to a substantial niche market, the relationships between producers and consumers have become less personal and the market more demanding of producers. By examining the experience of COOPABUENA, a coffee cooperative in southern Costa Rica, the ways in which these changes have discouraged producers can be seen. Here, fair trade has never become more than a small outlet for higher-priced coffee, whereas other alternate markets and institutions play the role of increasing small-producer incomes, helping to develop sustainable agricultural systems, and building links between Costa Rican producers and U.S. customers. For at least some producers, fair trade has failed to carry out its promise.
Ecological Economics, 2018
In recent years there has been an increase in social awareness about environment, production processes and product origin amongst consumers. Particularly in the agro-food industry, fair and responsible consumption has been proposed as a feasible alternative to conventional product consumption. Fair trade products are usually produced in developing countries and then commercialised in the rest of the world. However, we may compare this concept to that of "ethical-sustainable production" in developed countries, depending on the level of environmental responsibility, the way the production processes are developed and other business practices, which are similar to those used in fair trade. The findings reveal that the origin (local/regional) and the type of production are two attributes that are highly valued by consumers, with the socially and environmentally responsible production system and fair trade products providing a positive utility compared to conventional products. Three consumer groups have been identified with differentiated preferences: the group we call "Fair Trade Consumers", who allocate more value to the type of production; "Local Consumers", who allocate more value to the origin of products; and "Price Sensitive Consumers", who are less inclined to pay for products deriving from socially and environmentally responsible practices and fair trade products.