China

Fair Trade

Fair trade is defined in several ways. One simple definition is that it is encouraging development of local communities by advocating the payment of a higher price to exporters. The exporters are mainly advanced countries such as U.S, Europe, and so on. Simply, the fair trade movement improves the lives of people in the developing world. However, some people point out a problem of limited point of sale. Moreover, there seem to have few more problems about negative aspect of fair trade. Which points should be supported? With regard to the advantages of fair trade, one of the main advantages of fair trade is to empower farmers and it goes without saying that this movement helps small producers in the developing world. One example of this is that a fisherman from Indonesia now has a small co-operative business with four other fishermen from his village, thanks to the fair trade. Critics maintain that many farmers are empowering from this movement so much. Today, fair trade also helps producers to organize their own marketing and selling. Undoubtedly, it has lead farmer to have better life.
However, one could also argue that there are still many disadvantages such as limited point of sale. It is argue that most fair trade goods are sold at specialized shops and still little of them make their way to maintain distribution chains. Also, some traders offer the possibility of on-line shopping, which may be handy if you live far from any world shop.
As far as I’m concerned, in spite of these disadvantages for fair trade, we should keep the most optimistic view on it in order to help developing countries. This debate will undoubtedly continue for some