Noticias
How fair is Fairtrade?
por editor_holanda
The Fairtrade label is increasingly common. But while shoppers seem keen to pay a little over the odds for fair trade products, some observers question how effective it really is in helping developing world farmers.
Fair trade products are popping up everywhere althaugh not everyone is convinced that fair trade is a good idea.
Some critics claim that by focusing on achieving a fair price for poor farmers, the movement doesn't address issues of mechanisation and industrialisation - radical changes that might allow farmers in the developing world to stop doing back-breaking work and break out of the poverty cycle.
Gone are the days when you had to trek to an off-the-beaten-track shop that smelt of hemp in order to buy a fair trade woolly jumper or bar of chocolate. Now you just need to visit the High Street. Topshop, once a bastion of cheap and cheerful garments, sells fair trade tunics, bubble tops and racer-back vests. And Marks and Spencer works with more than 600 fair trade cotton farmers in the developing world, using their cotton to produce chinos (for men), jeans (for women), hooded tops (for the kids), and a host of other fair trade fashion items.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6426417.stm
Some critics claim that by focusing on achieving a fair price for poor farmers, the movement doesn't address issues of mechanisation and industrialisation - radical changes that might allow farmers in the developing world to stop doing back-breaking work and break out of the poverty cycle.
Gone are the days when you had to trek to an off-the-beaten-track shop that smelt of hemp in order to buy a fair trade woolly jumper or bar of chocolate. Now you just need to visit the High Street. Topshop, once a bastion of cheap and cheerful garments, sells fair trade tunics, bubble tops and racer-back vests. And Marks and Spencer works with more than 600 fair trade cotton farmers in the developing world, using their cotton to produce chinos (for men), jeans (for women), hooded tops (for the kids), and a host of other fair trade fashion items.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6426417.stm