Fair Trade Debate - Ethical Basis of Criticisms

Ethical Basis of Criticisms

Consumers are willing to pay more for Fairtrade products in the belief that this helps the very poor. The main ethical argument presented by critics of Fairtrade is that this money is diverted from the very poor farmers to businesses in rich countries, moderately poor farmers, employees of cooperatives, or is used for unnecessary expenses—and that this necessarily results in additional death and destitution. Critics think there is reason to doubt that much of the extra money paid actually reaches farmers, and that there is reason to believe that Fairtrade harms non-Fairtrade farmers. They argue that selling techniques for Fairtrade constitute Unfair Trading under EU law, by making false statements or withholding relevant information on what happens to money that consumers thing is going to help farmers in the Third World. There are also criticisms using many other criteria.

On the other hand, a pro-Fairtrade researcher claims out that while some of these criticisms are grounded in acceptable standards of evidence (and deserve serious attention), others are less well elaborated, and that in a few cases, the criticisms presented are assertions with little or no credible evidence to support them. However, these claims have themselves been criticized on matters of fact, theory, methodology, use of evidence and incorrect citations.