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Mainstreaming Fair Trade

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Title: Mainstreaming Fair Trade


1
Mainstreaming Fair Trade
  • Fair trade brands the problem of ownership
  • Dr. Anna Hutchens
  • Director, Fair Trade Program,
  • Centre for Governance of Knowledge Development,
    Australian National University.

2
Overview
  • Mainstreaming fair trade in product and
    principle?
  • Evolution in global food industry commodity-
    to brand- based markets
  • Fair trade consumer markets a typology
  • Analysing certification brands
  • - empowering producers?
  • - influence on conventional markets?
  • Lessons

3
Evolution in global food industry commodity- to
brand- based markets
  • Agriculture vital for development
  • Causing poverty for small-scale primary commodity
    producers
  • Buyer-driven supply chains control global markets
  • Profit power located in ownership of
    intangible assets

4
Global value-chain analysis
  • Level of competition at any stage of production
    indirectly proportional to value return
  • Upgrading offers market actors a way to improve
    their position by moving into less
    competitive/higher value units of production
  • Most lucrative is own-brand manufacturing (OBM)
    (a form of functional upgrading). Trade mark
    rights underpinning brand offer ongoing
    protection from competition

5
Mainstreaming Fairtrade product certification
  • 1989 - Max Havelaar established, adopted
    across Europe
  • 1997 - Fairtrade Labelling Organisations
    International (FLO)
  • Product certification enables any trader to
    sell Fairtrade provided they meet trader criteria
    (eg. sympathetic and traditional corporate
    buyers)
  • Rapid market success (US1.4b, 25 growth p.a
    over 5 yrs)
  • Trader Criteria
  • A price covering the cost of production
  • A social premium for development purposes
  • Advance payments to assist farmers during
    pre-harvest periods
  • Long-term contracts with producers to enable
    long-term production planning
  • Long-term trading relations to allow stable
    sustainable production planning

6
Fair Trade Organisations the principles of fair
trade
  • FTOs are first-movers in FT markets, share
    broader vision of FT advocated by International
    fair Trade Association (IFAT)
  • 1. Creating opportunities for economically
    disadvantaged producers
  • 2. Transparency and accountability
  • 3. Capacity building
  • 4. Promoting Fair Trade
  • 5. Payment of a fair price
  • 6. Gender Equity
  • 7. Working Conditions
  • 8. Child Labour
  • 9. The Environment

7
Mainstreaming fair trade principles FTO brand
companies
  • Distinctive breed of FTO fair trade brand
    companies (eg. Divine Chocolate, Cafédirect,
    Agrofair)
  • For-profit FTOs operating in highly concentrated
    commercial markets

8
Typology of fair trade consumer markets
eg. The Coop, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
eg. Divine Chocolate, Cafédirect, Agrofair
eg. Ten Thousand Villages, GEPA,
eg. Nestle, Starbucks
Sympathetic Corporate-buyer Model /
FTO Brand Companies //
Corporate-buyer Model /
Standard FTO /
Expansionist FT
Reductionist FT
FLO label FTO standards Corporate
buyer-owned brand Producer co-ownership in
specialised-product brand
9
FT certification
  • Producer remuneration status still tied to
    commodity production (low-value unit in
    value-chain)
  • the dollar value of cocoa in a bar of chocolate
    that costs 1 dollar is about eight cents. So you
    can be paying a cocoa grower a fair wage with
    respect to the local market, but the producer
    is not actually able to capture the value that
    their labour has directly and indirectly
    generated because all the value happens further
    down in the supply chain - its in the brand.

10
FT certification (contd)
  • FLOs funding growth model reinforces market
    inequalities of economic power and scale
  • one of the major problems with the
    greenwashing question is that FLO and Transfair
    USA refuse to address it publicly.
    Theirreasoning is obvious these companies doing
    the damage provide most of the cash for their
    operating budgets

11
FT certification (contd)
  • Diminishing emphasis in trader requirements on
  • Market access for small-scale producers, direct
    trader-producer relations, investment in
    capacity-building, long-term business
    partnerships, political advocacy for trade
    justice
  • Supermarket retailers can use label without
    becoming licensees since they outsource packing
    labelling. This potentially exposes producers to
    conventional-market cost-cutting pressures
    practices.
  • FLO offers no incentive for more highly
    committed retailers (or traders)
  • its not all about volume and signing up more
    MNCsSigning up more companies doesnt address
    ideological issuesFLO needs to push companies
    not just to address the price issue, but
    fundamental issues of inequality in the supply
    chainthats tough because its easy to ask a
    company to write a cheque, but to hand over
    power, I think thats where the challenge lies

12
Fair Trade Brands
  • - Producers receive fair trade price premium
  • - Producers co-own the brand (company
    shareholders, receive brand equity)
  • - Producers active in all (esp. value-added)
    parts of business (sales, marketing, corporate
    governance etc.)



  • - Producers benefit from FTO commitment to FT
    partnerships
  • - Compete strategically through market-specific
    brands

13
Resistance and Game-playing
  • Different approaches to democratising market
    governance resistance game-playing
  • Each causes different effect on markets, with
    implications for realising genuine change
  • Resistance causing symbolic imitation
    (subversion of Fairtrade logo into no more than a
    subsidiary brand for corporate actors who want to
    use the label and profit from it)
  • Game-playing forces conventional firms to
    compete on broader FT principles and practices
    for survival

14
Lessons
  • FT certification system needs strengthening to
    effectively manage and challenge corporate buyers
  • Fair Trade Brands represent ideal model for
    mainstreaming fair trade both in terms of
    producer-empowerment and changing
    business-as-usual
  • Very few fair trade brand companies exist (esp.
    outside Europe)
  • Power and significance of FTO brands poorly
    acknowledged in FT consumer education, advocacy,
    research
  • FTs entrepreneurial pioneers are crucial to FTs
    survival in mainstream markets
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